


Regular-Sized Romance

by NeverKnightfire



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Also some Erotic Friend Fictions, Awkwardness, F/M, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:14:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 63,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverKnightfire/pseuds/NeverKnightfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'd have to be crazy to fall for Louise Belcher. The girl was often described as an "Occupational Hazard" by the Wagstaff faculty. Similarly, you'd be out of your mind to fall for Rudolph "Regular-Sized Rudy" Stieblitz. The boy was obviously a walking example of genetics that were "Incompatible with Life". </p><p>It was just a good thing that they somehow fell for each other, and saved some other poor fools a load of heartache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Declaration at 13

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I said I would, so here we go. Apologies for any AO3 newbie goof-ups, I've had an account for one whole day. Phew. 
> 
> This is a story about a friendship turned to something more. A story about how two unlikely souls connected in a way that surprised and fascinated (and also sometimes horrified) them both. This is a story that will jump around chronologically, as it started life as a series of ridiculous one-shots done for the amusement of myself and a buddy, and it's something like 26 chapters long in my inbox and STILL being added to with no sign of settling into a solely forward-moving chronology. (Help me!)

It started with a proclamation of war.

"I'm just going to go ahead and tell you this, Rudy. I'm going to slap you."

Rudy's face contorted in a startled flinch, and then he laughed out loud at the suggestion. Louise gave him a withering glare born of thirteen years of experience dealing with the chronically annoying as he leaned back against the rough bark of the old oak tree they were sitting beneath, far at the edge of the school yard. It was barely on the Wagstaff school property, and thus they only just barely weren't skipping school by being there. Both he and Louise knew that technically they shouldn't be out here, but Louise never was one for technicalities that didn't benefit her and whatever she wanted to do at the moment.

They both knew that, as well.

The tree had been their shared lunchtime retreat since Gene and Tina had graduated to high school, leaving Louise behind at Wagstaff. She had dragged him out here under the broad leaves on one of the first days of the school year, and announced that he would be joining her for the foreseeable future. Rudy hadn't complained in the least. Honestly, he'd been delighted to be included. Their conversations were often weird, with Louise proclaiming some sort of pretended outrage over something completely off the wall that he couldn't quite follow. There was never any serious danger of her unleashing her pent-up prepubescent fury on him, though. Even if he had, against her growled warnings, stolen one of the chips from her brown bagged lunch.

Rudy mimed shoving her away, grinning with delight at the ridiculous game he believed that she'd begun. "Come on, Louise. No."

He snickered for a moment, already planning his next attempt at stealing one of the home-cooked chips her father had made. The two of them had been hanging out a lot more lately, and with the familiarity came increased exposure to Louise's particular brand of deranged humor. He liked it. It was as exciting as she was.

Louise's mouth twitched. "Yes," she repeated with dire finality. "I am going to slap you."

Rudy's brow furrowed with concern as he took in the look of concentration on his companion's face, straightening to attention as he realized that he'd somehow blundered into one of the odd times that Louise had said something bizarre that she was actually quite serious about. That wasn't good, he thought with an anxious internal groan. Louise had become his very best friend, and if he'd insulted her... He dreaded to think of the lonely consequences. With an earnest expression, he fumbled his way through an apology.

"Uh... wow. Okay, I won't do it again. I'm sorry for stealing one of your chips. You're right though, your dad makes some pretty good ones. Sorry I doubted."

Louise gave a grunt of irritation, looking away to her plastic baggie of thick-sliced salt and herb-caked goodness, and then back at Rudy. The long pink ears atop her head wavered with the movement, as if to emphasize her absurd frustration.

"That's not what I need to slap you for," she grumbled, teeth set so firmly together that her reply was difficult to make out.

"Wait," Rudy interjected, nerves compelling him to action as he sat up straight, hand automatically reaching for the inhaler he kept in the mace holster he wore everywhere since his ninth birthday. A quick hit from the device and he was shaking his head at her once more, confused and a little worried.

"Wait, now you NEED to hit me?! What did I do, then?" His voice had, despite his best intentions, taken on a sort of desperate plea. He flinched at how pathetic it sounded, not quite able to look Louise in the eye. The fact that no matter what, she had never, EVER expressed a genuine desire to actually strike him before hung heavy in the air with the question.

With a grunt, Louise averted her gaze from him and the increasing burning sensation he detected coming from his ears. Just as he'd almost gathered the nerve to try and speak again, she threw herself backwards onto the ground, surprising him. Rudy could only stare in confusion as she clutched at the long ears atop her head in frustrated agony.

"You just... AGH! Okay, I can't live like this. This.. Teenage thing is just... AGH!" She raged, kicking her heel against the ground in dramatic frustration. When the boy didn't reply, she released her headwear and turned her head to glare at him. "You jerk, you don't even know you're doing it, do you?"

At Rudy's non-committal shrug, Louise cried out in disbelief, sputtering a long litany of nonsensical half-syllables and illogical half-curses. At last she pointed an accusatory finger at him, regaining her command of the English language long enough to cry "You don't! You don't even freaking know! Unbelievable!"

Spent, she threw her hands in the air, letting them drop back over her head and into the grass. Her left fingertip brushed her baggie of chips. Distracted, she toyed with the edge of the plastic. She looked, Rudy thought to himself, like someone pondering how their life had somehow led to the most inconceivable of moments ever to occur to a human being with anything resembling sense at all. If she'd awakened that morning to discover that her family had some their restaurant to become a team of traveling acrobats, he wouldn't have been startled to see the look of shell-shocked astonishment that was on her face now.

Rudy stared her down, thoroughly baffled by this new warped event in their strange friendship. Louise was Louise. Volatile, unpredictable, exciting. It was honestly one of the highlights of his overly-sheltered life that she'd accepted him as a friend. He didn't dare entertain the notion of anything more, even in the quietest, furthest reaches of his own mind. Doing so would, he had always been certain, spell doom for this thing they had. Whatever it was, it was far too fun and far too precious to endanger with anything that wasn't rooted in the solid bedrock of Louise's interest. The idea that he'd ruined it somehow by swiping a potato chip was making his guts squirm like he had a bad case of food poisoning.

He was a little hesitant to speak, drawing her attention could spark a new explosion of her unpredictable fury. He couldn't just leave it, though. The compulsion was like picking at a scab that might not be fully healed yet. If the time wasn't right for this, it could very well end in bloodshed.

"Uh.. Well, if you tell me what I did, I can try not to do it anymore?" he suggested helpfully. "I don't mean to tick you off, you know."

Louise shifted, rolling her eyes as she muttered something to herself. Dumbfounded, he could only ask for a repeat. "Huh?"

Louise sat up like a spring-loaded grizzly bear, glaring daggers at him. Rudy gulped nervously as he took in her expression. There was no doubt whatsoever at this moment that she fully believed the universe was having a great joke at her expense and she was just along for the very reluctant ride.

"I said," she snapped, teeth clicking sharply as the fumed at him. "That I don't think I want you to stop ticking me off, okay? Sheesh! Clean the wax out of your ears, Reg-size!"

A taut silence stretched between them, the tension fraying it away until the strain seemed ready to snap and strike them with the backlash. Rudy fidgeted for a while, finally electing simply to stare at her, waiting for clarification. He wondered if he dared make a move to grab the juice box from his lunch. Suddenly his mouth was drier than the Sahara. This wasn't quite the Louise-rage he was used to.

Typically, Louise would huff and puff and he'd just sit back and stay out of the way while he let her get it out of her system until she was calm enough to explain using words instead of furious sputtered rage and babble about the possibility of causing bodily harm to some doofus who she believed deserved it. Of course, typically the doofus who she believed deserved it wasn't him. The girl scoffed at the scrutiny, shoving herself to her feet and pacing in the shade below their tree.

"God, you need it spelled out, don't you?" the girl sneered, as if she was trying to explain up and down to an exceptionally dull high schooler. She paused to snatch up the plastic baggie that had begun the entire, unfortunate affair. 

"Okay, look. See the chips?" At his baffled nod, she shoved the baggie into his face. "Eat them."

"Uhhhhh..." Rudy looked back and forth between her and the food in concern. "Louise, I don't-"

"EAT THE STUPID CHIPS!"

Rudy jumped, eyes widening slightly at the outburst. He eyed the innocent-seeming potato-based time bomb with reluctance. Something was about to happen when he accepted another one of those chips. Something irrevocable. He glanced back up at Louise's face, noting the vicious way she was biting her lip. Well, nothing for it. They'd had a good run, he supposed. It had been a lot of fun having someone as unpredictable as her as a friend. Then, with clear hesitation, he took a singular chip out of the bag and cautiously crunched down on it.

"THERE!" Louise snarled, pointing at his face triumphantly. "THERE! You see that? You know what I DO to people who eat my food?"

Rudy licked a bit of garlic salt off his fingers as he considered. "Yeah, you gave Andy and Ollie both black eyes last year when one of them tried to steal a macaroni noodle from your lunch tray." He gave her a reproachful glance as he mentioned the injury to the twins, which she shrugged off with disparaging scoff.

"Ah, they cry if they don't get to match. Ollie wouldn't shut up until I slugged him, too."

Rudy poked the still-extended baggie experimentally, arching an eyebrow at her as she dangled the food in the air. In response, she dropped the bag into his lap. He didn't get what this whole thing was supposed to be about at all.

"So... About this slapping thing?"

Louise exploded in fury, returning to her pacing. "Don't you get it?! I let you paw around in my lunch and I'm not trying to murder you yet! And murdering you would be SO easy! I mean, a brisk jog would do you in without that inhaler!"

Rudy sat the chips back on the ground and crossed his arms. Of all the incomprehensible things Louise had subjected him to, this had to be the most baffling. Maybe even more so than the ill-fated spaghetti sauce slip and slide that had ended up costing him his Hall Monitor position the previous year. "Okay, I don't get it. You want to beat me up..."

"Because I DON'T want to beat you up! Yes!" Louise cried, grabbing the ears of her hat and yanking them down sharply. "Oh my God, I thought you'd never get it! Geez!"

Rudy didn't appear impressed with her line of reasoning, cocking his head to the side and staring back down at the bag of chips in confusion. "I... Guess I don't get why...?"

Louise stomped over, grabbing up the plastic bag and twisting the neck of it like she was trying to strangle someone very annoying as she growled out her reply. "Because... Because that's the only way to get it out of my system, alright? It's just... It's just something I need to do!"

Rudy stared at her for a moment, then sighed. Typical Louise. The explanation made less sense than the action. He nodded in acceptance. "Okay. Uh, I guess let's do this. You want me to stand up, or-"

*CRACK!*

Rudy collapsed back against the aged oak with a strangled gasp, hand tentatively touching the red mark spreading across his cheek. "Holy... Holy crap!" he panted, wincing at the stinging sensation. "You said you wanted to slap me, not knock my head off!"

When Louise didn't answer, he squinted up at her. He was thoroughly expecting a triumphant "And THAT is what you GET!" from the girl. Her mood swings and chaotic rationale often lead her into doing things he didn't get, but he could always count on her looking smug and satisfied when she'd suckered him into doing something that common sense had insisted really wasn't a good idea. And boy, had common sense been insisting that THIS particular doozy was on the "Bad Idea" list. It was the slip and slide all over again.

Louise's face wasn't twisted in a teasing jeer, however. She appeared frozen where she'd struck him down, right hand still extended towards him. Her left hand was clamped firmly over her mouth and her eyes were large and watery. It was for all the world as if she'd just watched a puppy get run over by a city bus.

"L-Louise?"

"Oh... Shit. Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit! Why isn't...? Rudy, are you okay? Why didn't..? Oh SHIT!" Louise yelped, striding around the tree to curse loudly at him, or herself, or maybe her own hand. He wasn't really sure. After a few moments of this, the bell signalling the end of lunch rang in the distance. The two of them remained rooted in place on either side of the old tree.

"Rudy..?"

Wow, that didn't sound like the Louise he knew. That sounded nervous. Almost scared. He flinched at the tone as well as the stinging that was devouring half his face.

"Yeah?" he finally replied, wincing.

"You... Hate me now, don't you?"

Rudy sat up, gingerly poking at the abused flesh below his left eye. It still seemed to be there, just a lot more painful than he'd like. "Why would I hate you?"

"Because I damn near gave you whiplash!" Louise's disembodied voice spat venomously. "Isn't that a good enough reason?"

Rudy considered for a moment before replying "No?"

Louise appeared beside him without warning, face red and eyes freely leaking something he could only assume to be tears. He'd never seen her cry before though, so it was hard to tell. Maybe her allergies were bothering her? Before he could ask, she angrily snapped at him again. "What are you, some kind of masochist or something? You get clobbered and you're just like; 'Oh! Okay then!' That is messed up, Rudy! Messed up!" She punctuated this with a jab at his chest, putting on a show of being angry with him even though her voice quivered. "I ought... I mean... YOU ought to be furious. I freaking HURT you. Come on, smack me one back or something!"

"Louise, I don't want to hit you!" He objected loudly, backpedaling away from the girl for the first time in the whole conversation.

"I need you to, okay!?" Louise, typically so much larger than life, was hunched over like she thought she was a monster. "I just... I'm going to be sick or something otherwise. Freaking masochist..." 

The pieces of the puzzle stubbornly refused to slide into place. No way. There was no way.. or was there? Louise Belcher felt bad about striking him down like an ant? His mind was full of error messages at the very notion. The only time he'd ever seen her this upset was when she'd done something she was afraid her family would hate her for. And how in the heck did stealing a potato chip equate to needing to smack him upside the head? Sure, she'd been willing to clobber people before, like Andy and Ollie, or there was that time Tina had mentioned, when Louise had smacked that guy from that boy band-

Oh.

OH.

The pieces snapped abruptly into their proper places, affording Rudy a high-definition view of the big picture. A tremulous bit of daring rushed through him, and he nearly gasped at the surge of adrenaline. Who knew if he'd ever get an opportunity like this again? He managed a lop-sided grin, even with his face rapidly swelling. A masochist, was he? Well, there might be something to that idea at this rate.

"Heh.. Maybe. Um.. Can I give you something, Louise?" He pressed his back-up inhaler into her hand. "I think I get it," he admitted softly. "And.. Me too."

The girl's eyes widened at the statement, in spite of her offended tough guy routine. Thunderstruck, she sat down hard on the grass beside him as she examined the device in her palm, realization dawning slowly over her features.

"You too...?" Her eyes suddenly went sharp, and the Louise he knew was suddenly back in full mischievous force. Oh god, he loved that look. "I decide if you live or die if your regular inhaler fails while I have this. You know that, right?"

Rudy ducked his head and nodded, a faint blush reddening his unabused cheek. "That's the idea."

Louise looked up at him, and he fought the urge to squirm at the sensation of something weird and kind of sort of wonderful pulling at his chest as she examined the inhaler. "That's kind of sweet. Some lame boyfriend would try and pawn off heart-shaped chocolates on a girl, but you're giving me the power of life and death? If I was a hormonal sissy teenage dork, I might even call that romantic."

Rudy nodded, watching how her face lit up in a subtle blush that matched her rabbit eared hat. "Try not to almost kill me to prove you can more than once a week, okay?"

Louise's eyes sparkled and she cackled victoriously. "No promises! I'm a bitch!"

"That's what I hear," he agreed, clambering to his feet to run as she tore after him, screaming "You bastard, you can't outrun me! I have your inhaler! Don't make me kill you five minutes into being my boyfriend!"

She'd catch him, that was a foregone conclusion and they both knew it. But Rudy supposed that was the whole point to their relationship. After all, didn't she say she wanted him to keep ticking her off?


	2. Evaluation at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time anyone dared evaluate Louise's taste in men, the initial assessment was a little misleading. At least her father got some ideas for the restaurant out of the experience, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Sorry this is a bit late. The problem I have now is deciding what gets posted next. Like I mentioned before, these are going to jump around in the timeline. This chapter we have an appearance of some of my favorite Bob's one-time characters. I absolutely love Marbles, Cha-Cha and Glitter and the episode that they premiered in. Gotta love anyone who helps Bob get one over on Jimmy Pesto, right?

"Come on, Dad!"

"Louise, stop."

"Come on! You LIKE Rudy, don't you?"

"I... guess."

"And he's always helpful, right? Here at the restaurant? Tries to help clean up and stuff?"

Bob made an annoyed grunt in response, attempting to ignore Louise's wheedling in favor of sweeping the scattered fragments of a few autumn leaves back out the front door. As the girl insisted that this sort of "grunt work" was exactly the thing he needed a hired hand to do, he set his sights on the back room, ducking into the kitchen and replacing the careworn broom in the back closet before washing his hands. He really couldn't quite afford to hire someone officially to help out. Louise had floated the idea before, and he'd almost immediately shot it down. Not that he didn't like Louise's boyfriend of almost half a year. Not that Rudy wasn't polite, attentive and willing to pitch in. Not even that he represented a negative influence on Louise - in fact Bob worried that Louise was a terrible influence on the boy, instead.

But facts were facts. Bob just simply could not afford to pay another employee. The kids got their allowances as pay of sorts, and he and Linda took checks at barely above minimum wage just to make the books come out even. Additionally, if he was to be honest, he really didn't want to be the sole party liable for the kid's health more often than necessary. Especially with him under Louise's questionable influence. 

Bob had struggled all his life, and that was okay, he expected it. He'd worked his way through life with little but a family he loved to keep him centered and grounded and a bright, shimmering star of a dream hanging just above his brow to keep his head up and his pride intact. He didn't need much more than those two things, in truth. The unpleasant truth was that the rising prices of the grade of ingredients that he used in the kitchen meant that the slim margin of profit that they were getting by on was on a perpetually more intense diet every day.

In the meanwhile the kids had school supplies, clothing, hobbies and other incidental costs that were always adding up. Linda insisted that one bright spot was that he and Gene were going to be sharing clothing soon at the rate the kid was shooting up in height. Tina was already borrowing a few items of her mother's for special occasions, and Louise had thrown a fit some days before about how she refused to wear Tina's hand me downs.

And yet here the girl was, demanding another outlet for what money he did have. Bob groaned as he met her expectant face through the kitchen window.

"Louise, look..."

The door bell chimed, prompting Louise to grin as she looked over to see the newcomer. "Hey Roo!"

Bob palmed his face with a fresh sigh as the boy waved, settling himself onto one of the bar stools and unwinding a ridiculously long scarf from around his neck.

"Hi, Louise. Hi, Mr. Belcher. Man, it's getting cool out there!"

Bob spared a quick glance out the front window, noting the late October sky appeared to have darkened into a rich, hazy gold. He'd been so focused on his leaves that he hadn't even noticed while he'd been outside. A few leaves fluttered against the glass, blown by a brisk and chilly breeze. Had Linda been there, instead of with Tina and Gene at what she'd called an "Emergency" parent-teacher meeting involving a lot of rubber spiders and the high school girls dressing room, she'd probably have wanted to put on some appropriately spooky Halloween music. As it was, it was merely October 3rd. Perhaps a bit too early for groaning ghosts and clanking skeletons as a soundtrack, in his opinion. 

Rudy was studying the special of the day board with a confused look when Bob glanced back.

"Mr. Belcher, what's a... Always Sunny-side Up in Burgerdelphia? Does that have eggs?"

Louise made a dramatic, horrified face as her father confirmed her boyfriend's suspicions.

"Well, yeah. It's uh... kind of a brunch-dinner fusion thing. I got some sausage from Teddy as a payment on his tab..."

Bob resisted the urge to roll his eyes at how this was yet another reason that there was a cash flow problem. At least it was higher-end stuff. He shook off the thought, realizing that he'd trailed off mid-sentence and the teenagers were looking at him curiously.

"I think he's having a flashback," Louise hissed at Rudy from the side of her mouth. "That or maybe a stroke!"

"Louise," Bob groaned, earning a cheer of "He's back!" from his daughter. Before she could start talking about putting him in a home or something, he forged ahead with his explanation. 

"And uh... Yeah. A little of that in our burger mix, some crisp bacon and well... It has a fried egg on top, but it's a solid yolk, not really sunny side up. It was... a little hard to come up with a name for that, though."

Louise paled as Rudy nodded. "Okay, I'll try it! Ring me up, Louise."

Louise stared at him a moment, then pretended to choke and gag. "Seriously, Roo? Breakfast for dinner?! What's wrong with you? Other than the obvious, I mean?"

Rudy grinned and shrugged, clearly not offended by her blunt words. "I eat breakfast for dinner at my dad's all the time. Ever have waffles for supper? It's great! First you have all this energy to run around and clean up with, then you crash just about at bed time."

Bob chuckled as Louise rang up the objectionable purchase, returning to the kitchen to start on the food. He felt like teasing the girl to get back at her for her earlier comments, so he couldn't resist suggesting something he knew she'd have a problem with. "Maybe you should try one, Louise?" He glanced out of the small window above the prep station, giving her a smug look as her mouth dropped open in clear and utter horror at the very notion.

To Bob's surprise, Rudy grinned in a slightly devious manner upon seeing Louise's reaction. "We'll make a bedtime breakfast believer out of you, Louise!"

"One of us! One of us!" The duo began chanting, only breaking off when Louise pointed at them in turn from her refuge by the register and shouted "NEVER!" with enough venom that Rudy started to laugh and laugh... and wheeze.

Bob breathed a sigh of relief as Rudy fumbled with and then used his inhaler, sheepishly grinning at their concerned faces as he replaced the item in its holster. "S-sorry. I got carried away, there."

Louise grumbled at his traitorous lungs as she walked back over to the spot in front of him at the counter. She crossed her arms over her chest, glowering at him for his moment of frailty. "Quit nearly dying, it's unhealthy! I was just telling Dad about how he should hire you earlier, and here you are trying to croak!"

Bob grit his teeth, brow furrowing as she brought up a point he'd thought he'd already made very clear. "Louise, I told you. We can't afford to hire anyone right now. It's not in the budget."

Louise's retort was cut off as an embarrassed Rudy stammered a reply over her. "Oh... Oh that's okay Mr. Belcher! I mean, I'm over so much, I'd be happy just to help out to pay you guys back for-"

"Do NOT!" Bob growled, pointing his spatula at the flush-faced boy. "Do NOT say 'for putting up with me', Rudy."

The boy squirmed a bit in his seat, uncomfortable with the attention. When Rudy simply nodded in reply, Bob sighed. Reprimanding the kid for his low self esteem was counter-productive, no matter how well he seemed to take it from Louise. Critique from anyone else seemed to send the boy retreating inside himself like a kicked puppy.

The jingle of the door bell chimed again, and Bob fought a grin at the sight of the three ladies who wandered into the restaurant. "You three are out early!"

Glitter, Cha-Cha, and Marbles all giggled in reply, waving happily at him before settling in around Louise and Rudy. Glitter tossed her red hair before pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders. "It's the darned time change, Bob!"

Marbles nodded, looking indignant as her blonde hair fluttered around her face. "It just ain't safe for a body to be out this time o' year at our usual hours."

Cha-Cha shivered. "I'm telling you! I hear Grogan got in a bad way last week after crossing paths with some thugs. The streets just aren't safe anymore at night! What's this city coming to, Bob?"

Bob brought out Rudy's food, regarding his three friends with a thoughtful frown. "Geez, that's kind of scary. What are you girls going to do?"

Marbles stared at the plate in Bob's hand, leaning forward to give it a thorough once-over. "Well first off I'm gonna ask you when you started serving breakfast, Bob! I didn't even know you served it at all, let alone all day!"

Bob sat the plate down in front of Rudy, who happily dug in, sending Louise into a spasm of disgusted faces. "Oh... Well we don't usually. Just trying to use up some stock."

Glitter frowned unhappily in her layers of chiffon and spandex. "Oh you should, Bob! No one serves breakfast on this end of town! It's only convenience store burritos until eleven!"

Bob made a thoughtful noise, turning his head to glance across the way to Jimmy Pesto's bustling eatery. There was no such thing as Italian restaurant breakfast food, was there? Of course there also was no such thing as Jamaican Italian night. Still, an opportunity to get ahead of Jimmy on something was an intriguing notion.

Cha-Cha giggled, drawing Bob's attention back to where she was poking the once again blushing Rudy. "And who is this? Did Louise get a boyfriend?"

Louise straightened, raising her head haughtily before replying in an imperious tone. "As a matter of fact, I did!"

The trio giggled, eyeing an embarrassed Rudy, who sat down his sandwich before wiping his face and shyly smiling. "Um, hi?"

That sat off a new burst of giggles, which lasted until Glitter leaned in the boy's face to growl "You better be a sweetheart to Louise, understand? She's an absolute doll."

"Yes'm," Rudy replied with an immediate, reflexive nod. The reaction was immediate as the amused Cha-Cha and Marbles giggled and Glitter scowled at the anxious boy.

"Hey! Hey! Back off my Roo, girls!" Louise shouted, exiting the area behind the counter to wave Glitter off of Rudy. "Get your own guys! This one's spoken for!" She seized Rudy's arm, hugging it protectively against her chest as the boy turned bright red.

Marbles and Cha-Cha squealed in mock-fear at the declaration as Glitter raised her hands defensively... taking Rudy's burger with them.

Before the startled boy could protest, the food was just a memory.

"Adorable boy, Louise. A bit of a doormat, though. You do you though, Louise-honey," Cha-Cha mused with a disappointed sigh as Rudy gaped in the direction his sandwich had disappeared in, brow furrowing in startled annoyance. "Doormat? I'm not a..." From behind Rudy, Louise scowled at the evaluation, growling softly.

"Breakfast menu, Bob! Think about it, sweetie!" Marbles tittered, waving for two more to go. Bob nodded, turning back towards the kitchen as Louise and Rudy squawked their objections to how they were now being summarily ignored.


	3. Inception at 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inception of their relationship was unique, to say the least. It was probably just a dream about someone else having a dream, if there was such a thing.

It was the house again.

Rudy traced a palm against the kitchen wall of the house that wasn't his uncle's house, except in his dreams. He wasn't sure what the exterior looked like. Whether it had the battered wrap-around porch and dust-beige paint job of the genuine article or a uniquely strange appearance of its own was still a mystery. He'd tried the front and only door before, but it didn't open. It wasn't that it was locked, it was like it was a fake, perfectly sculpted onto the wall and outfitted with a knob for decoration only.

Rudy still wasn't sure if that was supposed to be unsettling or not. 

It probably should, he thought. The fact that he'd seen this place repeatedly for years had given it enough familiarity that the mundane matter of the lack of door was scarcely worth noting anymore. He turned towards the back of the place and strode off in search of something more interesting. 

The living room, waiting back behind him, was very similar to the genuine article. Only the not-door and the lack of windows, although the curtains were still there, gave away that something wasn't quite right. The kitchen and adjoining dining room were full of second hand furniture and dated decor from the eighties which was also reminiscent of the real thing. It was a very good approximation, or at least it was up to a point. Based on past experience, Rudy knew that the hallway that ran past the pantry to the rest of the place was where things got weird in a big way. The hallways and multiple sitting rooms twisted and turned in improbable directions. He had tried multiple times to draw a map based on what he remembered of the place while awake, but the warped space and it's disregard for logic made doing so impossible.

He stepped down into the sunken kitchen, and continued through it and down the back hallway. To his left, the walk in pantry door yawned open, revealing shelves of products both for dining and cleaning. Absently, Rudy noted that larger, industrial-size cans and boxes had begun to replace the multitudes of smaller ones. Hm. Well it was a better aesthetic fit for the space, at least. Those large wooden shelves had looked cavernous with typical supermarket-sized cans lining them.

There was a small open room in front of him, with branching hallways waiting expectantly for him to pass by. The one on the left was cluttered. Broken furniture lined the hall space, and a musty smell issued from one of the dark bedrooms closest to the entrance to that area of the house. Rudy wrinkled his nose at the sight of the disused entrance. Something about it reminded him of his dad's place. Maybe the mildew smell. It was the most "normal" area, he knew from past exploration. The doors and walls stayed in place usually, and occupied space in much the way you'd expect them to. Sometimes the rooms swapped places, but by and large they did remain the same rooms and made some kind of sense in terms of a floor plan.

The doorway to his right lead to a small den. The wooden panels were heavy on the walls, the real thing and not the cheap imitations that had been fashionable for budget-minded homeowners once. There was an upright piano in that room, along with an impressive rock fireplace. It looked like it was a comfortable place to rest, and even to appreciate the odd knickknacks and many large books that lined the shelves.

The glossy hardwood floor beneath him bounced an inverted worldview up at him as he considered the reading room. He found the space, as intimate and stereotypically homey as it appeared, to be the most unsettling. The books were full of oversized insects and horrible deep sea fish, and creatures that seemed completely alien and unwelcome in his mind after being seen. There was also the fact that the pictures moved ever so slightly, as if the monstrous things captured in their pages were only stunned in their paper prisons and might at any moment burst into wakefulness and claw their way to freedom.

The piano gave a soft groan as the boy tiptoed past the door. It was ridiculous, being afraid of books and pianos. He knew that there was nothing actively lurking in there waiting to strike, but his unease was always compounded when a whisper of a noise came from that damnable spooky room.

The doorway straight ahead lead to another series of rooms, and was a shining, pure white. The walls and ceiling shone with pearly-pale semi-gloss paint. The hardwood floor was replaced with a pillowy-soft white carpet as plush as any stuffed animal he'd ever touched. Even the picture frames on the walls were white, and the images in them of unfamiliar people and places appeared sepia-faded as well.

It was like being inside of a new sheet of paper.

Rudy stood in the threshold for a moment, breathing in the bleach and dryer sheet-fresh, slightly chemical smell of what he thought of as the "Nautilus Hall".

As he started down the bright hall, he glanced idly into the room just to the left, the doorway lined by a rounded transparent arch full of water that flowed seamlessly from one spot on the floor to the other with a few bright goldfish sparkling in the columns of top-lit bubbles from some hidden air filters. He liked the fish, they were pleasant enough to look at in their starkly sterile home. He wondered how they were fed, though.

Beyond the aquarium doorway, a small sitting room with paintings in pastel shades on the walls waited. A pair of short love seats faced each other from across the room. There were no windows, just like the rest of the house. Unlike the morbid things that softly twitched in the books that lurked in the reading room, the pleasant hued images in the art room were lifelessly still. They felt hollow, empty. Perhaps a bit dead. It was like seeing a series of incredibly well-done mannequins on display in coffins in a funeral home lobby.

Ugh, there was a reason that funeral homes didn't do that.

He had reached the end of the hall. With a grin, Rudy turned right, counting the steps in his head even though he already knew how many there would be until his next turn. He took the right turn, running a hand along the door frame as he did. The hall opened into a vast parlor, many pairs of wing backed chairs inviting him to take a seat with a sort of stiff, distant reluctance. The opposite wall was a great expanse of mirror, which echoed his movements with absolutely no strange irregularity. The strangeness here was the ghostly people who flitted through the reflected image, dressed up as if for a singularly fancy but rather silly party. Plumed masks and elaborate costumes seemed to be the order of the day in the mirror world.

He watched for a moment as a tall, dark-haired woman in a shimmering blue and green peacock-inspired gown ran laughing silently through the reflected image, pursued by what were apparently close friends, chasing her in their own lavish dresses. The colorfully costumed women spun and laughed as they ran past, disappearing through a set of French doors that didn't appear on Rudy's side of the glass. The mirror room was his favorite. Despite the slightly unsettling quality of the disembodied reflections, there was nothing frightening or spooky here. He'd spent hours of dream time watching the glimpses of some high-society party.

Shaking off the urge to start another fruitless search for the way into the mirror world, Rudy pressed on. At the end of the mirror room was another branching hallway. Turning right into the first doorway, he entered a large bedroom. It was probably a girl's room, based on the canopy bed and decorations. Gauzy material clung to the pale bed posts, and several stuffed animals in neutral shades clustered welcomingly at the end of the bed, brightly shining eyes eagerly watching for the return of their mistress. He'd never seen the room's owner, unless maybe she had been one of the party patrons. This room had an interesting feature of its own, however.

Rudy pulled open the slatted door to the walk in closet, which was curiously bare compared to the richly lived-in bedroom. A few boxes of paint and wall trim sat in the floor, keeping a long-abandoned wall roller company. Stepping over these, Rudy grasped the surface of the built-in shelves that sat snugly along one side of the right wall, beside a framed-in section for hanging clothing. He pulled, and the entire section of shelves swung cautiously agape for him.

A right turn, beyond a right turn, beyond a right turn. This space just plain couldn't exist. Yet there it was, with more unfinished hallways and a set of cabinets that ran in clusters from floor to ceiling. Rudy felt the familiar giddy rush at the sheer impossibility of the place as he ducked trough the hidden passage, running down two more adjoining halls in yet more right turns that couldn't exist. It was so ridiculous. This place wasn't real. It couldn't be. Not only because of the disregard for the physical plane but also because he could RUN here! He could run as long and as hard as he wanted without getting the slightest bit tired or winded.

"Suck it, lungs!" He shouted in a fit of exuberance as the took a running leap down a hallway with shiny linoleum floors.

His enthusiasm was ill-timed, however. Rudy missed his landing and stumbled, knocking into a closed door on the left side of the unfinished family room he'd been rushing through. He winced at the twinge in his arm from where he'd caught himself. Whoever said you couldn't get hurt in dreams was full of something. Something that stunk like wet garbage.

"Argh.. Crap. Stupid traitorous limbs."

He was so invested in his personal annoyance that it caught him by surprised when the door behind him rattled, then opened to reveal a girl. This was absolutely new. No one had EVER been in the house with him before. Not unless you counted the mirror people. And the girl wasn't just any girl.

"Louise?"

She smirked playfully, pink ears bobbing as she ducked down to his level. "Rudy? What are you, lost?"

He was blushing. He could feel how hot his face had gotten. The temperature of the room had probably gone up by ten degrees just because of how hot his face was now. "Hi. Uh.. What's...? What're you doing here?"

Louise shrugged, straightening to her feet and stepping over him to look around the unfinished room. She paused beside the mantle, picking at the white paint covering the hearth. Rosey-colored brick peeked out from the wound she was scratching into the surface by the time she bothered to answer him. "I dunno. What are YOU doing here? I go where I want, Rudy."

Rudy nodded. It was very like Louise to offer such a non-answer, even in his dreams. He rubbed at his blushing face, mentally commanding his cheeks to stop being flushed. He'd only realized recently that he had developed a crush on the youngest Belcher sibling, and looking back now it was obvious that it had been brewing for a long time. And even if he acknowledged it, he couldn't quite articulate it. How sad was it that even in his dreams he couldn't quite make eye contact after the epiphany? Thank goodness Gene's upcoming graduation to high school had kept Louise distracted, or she'd probably have punched him out.

"Man, this place sucks. Gotta say, though, you startled me banging into the wall like that. I didn't think anyone was back here. Most everyone is at that lame party." Louise was poking at the hearth again, he noticed belatedly.

"Party?"

Louise turned from scratching her initials into the painted brick. Her annoyed expression cowed him a little. "Stupid Gene's stupid graduation party. It's SO stupid, I'm not even joking. I mean, why celebrate that? I mean come ON! Do we even know he's gonna graduate? And why couldn't he just take one for the team.." Louise trailed off, choking a bit on some unfamiliar emotion stifling her voice. Once she'd gotten a handle on herself enough to speak again, she shot him a venomous glare. "I'm gonna be all alone, okay? And it's like... no one even cares! Rudy, how do you do it?! I've had pretty much NO time to myself since the day I was born! I've had to learn to deal with it, you know? There's always been someone there if I wanted company or not! And.. And now... Look, Just shut up, you don't know anything about it!"

Louise slumped into a sitting position on the floor a few feet away, softly sniffling in spite of what was clearly a dedicated effort not to.

Rudy, blush forgotten, did a sort of squirmy crab walk over to where she sat. "Um.. You know... You don't have to be alone, Louise. You've got friends."

The girl wiped at her face with the back of her hand before gracing him with a damp-eyed incredulous look and a biting, sarcastic laugh. "Andy and Ollie?"

Rudy bit his lip, cheeks flaring in a new blush. "Well, what about me? I think I'm your friend. I mean..."

She raised her head slowly and stared at him in startled bafflement. "What, just drag you off on whatever the misadventure of the day is?"

He grinned bashfully, shoulders rising as he ducked his head. "Ask me sometime, okay? I'd like... I'd like to hang out. Really."

Before Louise could answer, the early morning sun was in Rudy's eyes as his mother opened the blinds to the new day. The boy grumbled. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about, but he felt sure he'd been at a good part.

Across town, Louise startled awake. As she stared up at her Kuchi Kopi poster, she resolved that damn it, she was going to see if her subconscious was right about Rudy wanting to hang out. Hell, the way he'd been avoiding her lately, she was nearly sure he'd decided he didn't want to be associated with her. "Dream Rudy, if you lied to me, I'll kick your ass!"


	4. Notification at 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's the worst thing that could happen when parents find out their daughter has a boyfriend? Bob can tell you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... I did NOT intend for it to take so long to get this chapter revised and up. Sorry about that.

"It's pretty busy, for a Tuesday!"

Linda's optimistic assessment of the day's business so far earned a mere hum of distracted agreement from Bob, who currently was leaning against the prep station with a notepad, trying to think of a good name for a burger served with a tangy sour cream sauce. So far, he had five lines of scribbled-out ideas and nothing that really spoke to him. It was getting frustrating, honestly. Maybe when Tina got home, she'd have some suggestions, he thought to himself as he put away the much-abused pad of paper. He didn't want to get stressed out about burger names again, but this shouldn't be so difficult!

Bob glanced over to the front door of the restaurant as the door chime jingled. His younger daughter's friend was loitering in the doorway, staring around as if fascinated.

It wasn't as if "Regular-Size Rudy" had never been in the Belcher family restaurant before. Far from it, in fact. But every time he entered, he looked around as if the restaurant was a strange pocket dimension of the world he was familiar with. Some sort of strange wonderland that held magical properties, perhaps. A few early afternoon diners, probably bound for the Wharf, littered the dining room. They paid the boy no heed as he lingered in the entrance.

"Uhh.. Hey Rudy," Bob finally called, drawing the teenager's attention to the small window that joined the kitchen to the dining area. The boy brightened, waving before entering the restaurant fully and seating himself on a bar stool.

Linda, who'd been freshening up coffee for their guests, hustled back over to the counter. "Oh it's Louise's little boyfriend! How are you, sweetie?" She reached over to pat him on the shoulder with a grin.

Bob rolled his eyes and sighed. "He's not her boyfriend, Lin. He's a friend who happens to be a boy!"

Before Linda could reply, Rudy's face darkened with color. Bob's paternal instincts snapped to attention like a wino who'd just heard a cork pop. Linda frowned thoughtfully at the near-glare on his face until noticing who it was directed towards.

Rudy's shoulders rose a bit in a defensive cower as he favored the two Belcher parents with an embarrassed, hesitant grin.

"Ummm, actually..?"

Linda's hands flew to her face as she gasped. "Oh! OH! Oh my god! My little Louise has a boyfriend! Bobby! Louise has a-"

"I heard, Lin!" Bob interrupted, squinting skeptically at the boy sitting at the front counter.

"Oh my god, Bobby! My last baby is growing up!" Linda paced rapidly back and forth, nearly twirling in place as she processed the frightening thought. "I gotta talk to her!" Linda paled as she yelped "Oh, I gotta have THE talk with her!"

Linda threw off her apron and tossed it on the counter as she fled for the door. "I gotta call Ginger and tell HER about this!"

"Linda, don't leave! It's nearly time for the dinner rush! Lin!" Bob cried, only to be summarily ignored as his wife homed in on Rudy again, grabbing his closest ear with righteous, motherly fury. The teenager gave a startled yelp, peering up at Linda like a peasant awaiting judgement from an angry monarch.

"You better be a perfect gentleman to my precious angel!" She warned, to which the boy nodded with wide, terrified eyes. Satisfied, Linda flung her arms around the boy and cooed "Aw, I bet you're so precious together!" Rudy blinked in consternation at the turn around.

With hardly a backwards glance, she abandoned the restaurant to run for the family apartment. Bob groaned as he heard her run up the stairway on the other side of the wall, bellowing for Gene.

"Oh god."

The few patrons of the afternoon spared barely a glance at the father/boyfriend stare-down that followed. Apparently they all were ignoring the drama in the hope that it would go away, or pretending to ignore it in the hope that it would continue unhindered.

Bob was uncertain which was preferable.

"So, uh.." He trailed off, looking back to the idling grill for reassurance. "You, uh.. You and Louise, huh?"

Rudy flashed him a lop-sided attempt at a smile. "Y-Yeah.. This isn't really, you know, how I thought you guys would find out. I mean, this.. Oh boy, this is awkward." The boy fished in his backpack for his inhaler as he spoke, punctuating his observation with a puff of the medicine.

Bob laughed, in spite of himself. "No, awkward is what happened when Lin's folks found out about us." The older man leaned on the frame of the small window that connected the kitchen and the dining room. A shadowed expression came over his face as the long-ago horror replayed in his mind's eye.

"You don't know what embarrassment is until you have your future mother in law yelling across the yard at her husband- who's standing in the doorway in his underwear, by the way- about how she needs to take your girlfriend for an STD screening and get her on birth control. All of this while the neighbors watch."

Rudy hissed in reflexive sympathy. "Ouch."

The family that had been straggling at one of the tables after paying suddenly decided they should leave. Bob breathed a sigh of relief as the door swung shut behind them.

"Hell yes, ouch," Bob agreed, pausing to straighten the prep station. "Rudy, I'm just going to say it. If you ever put me in that position, I will be very... displeased, do say the least."

The teenager laughed, muttering something that sounded like agreement.

"Alright," Bob sighed, turning down the grill and stalking around to the counter as if there was anything he'd rather be doing. "Rudy, I'm a dad. You know I have to ask. You guys aren't..?"

The boy shook his head with such shocked vigor that Bob nearly smiled. Instead, he opted to cross his arms over his apron and give the boy his best attempt at a glower.

"Okay, good. I'm trying to be a reasonable guy here.."

"And I appreciate it, Mr. Belcher." A pained, forced smile flitted across Rudy's face.

Bob rolled his eyes. "..But as a dad, I gotta ask. You know, for Louise's safety and stuff. You'll understand it when you have kids someday, and one of them is a headstrong anarchist who does whatever the hell she wants and you only find out about it in Parent/Teacher conferences and sometimes on the evening news."

"At least you care about whatever you find out," Rudy grumbled, frowning at the formica countertop. "Sorry, that... That sounded really... Yeah."

Bob frowned at the response. "What? Why wouldn't I care? Caring is how I know whether I need to call a lawyer. And y'know, it's kind of what parents DO."

"Maybe some of them," Rudy allowed. "You know, I've always been kind of envious of Louise. I mean, she sometimes acts like she takes it for granted, but she really has it all. Siblings who all care about each other and would do anything for each other, parents who are still together and love each other, a place to live that's actually a home and not just a stopover to sit your bags down in until the weekend starts or ends... She acts like she doesn't care about it all, but I know she does. She's... She's said so. Don't tell her I told you."

Bob nodded, leaning on the front counter.

"And y'know," Rudy added "It's.. It's like I said. You guys care. I could get into all kinds of trouble, and my folks would only care whose week it was when it happened so they could have someone to blame for it."

Bob grunted thoughtfully. "Well, I mean.. It's not quite so cut and dry. Sometimes parents act mad because they don't know what to do. It's a scary job."

Rudy nodded. "Still, when it's not just big stuff, when it's mundane, everyday stuff... I think sometimes that if my parents could hit rewind to before they met and avoid each other, they'd do it. I mean, a lot of times I feel like I'm just... I don't know... in the way a lot." Bob's brow furrowed at this statement, and he worked at opening his mouth as if to speak. Before he could, Louise stormed through the door, dripping chocolate sauce like a melting banana split.

"Louise?!" Bob yelped, just as Rudy bounced to his feet and ran over to her. "What happened to you?"

The girl growled deep in her throat as she stalked past her boyfriend and her father to shove her way into the kitchen. Rudy hesitated, clearly uncertain if he was allowed to intrude. Bob followed his youngest daughter into the back, only to be roughly shoved aside as Louise stormed back out, tucking a pastry bag, half of a carton of coleslaw that should have been thrown out the week before, and a slightly over-ripe tomato into her sticky bookbag.

"Louise? What in the heck?" Bob demanded, shadowing her as she moved towards the door. "What are you going to do with that... Uh, that stuff?"

"I'm going to teach that dickhead Logan what happens when you cross me!" Louise spat, dripping chocolate sauce as she increased her pace towards the front door, which Rudy was hesitantly loitering in front of. "Rudy. MOVE."

Rudy gulped, but the only move he made was to reach behind him, fumbling with the lock for a moment before he managed to click it into place. Louise loomed over him with a furious growl. "I'm... Louise you can't do... whatever it is you're about to do."

"Rudy. I said MOVE."

Her boyfriend straightened slightly, biting his lip. "Louise, maybe whatever you're planning with that tomato and stuff isn't uh.. Isn't the best idea?"

Bob had to admit, I never thought that the boy had it in him to stand up to an abusive parking meter, let alone the volatile enigma that was Louise. For her part, Louise fairly exploded at the objection.

"The best idea? I don't care about the BEST idea! I just want immediate satisfaction for the fact that Logan Bush dumped a gallon of freaking chocolate sauce on my HEAD."

Rudy wilted slightly. "Y-yeah, but..."

Louise pointed at her soggy hat. "On my HEAD, Rudy! That's where my EARS live!"

Rudy flinched. "Sure, but um.."

Louise flung her arms, along with a goodly amount of chocolate drippings, towards the ceiling. "Do you KNOW how bad chocolate sauce stains? It's like blood, but with more sugar!"

Rudy's gaze suddenly went sharp-edged, and his voice was an impatient growl as he snarled back. "You're wasting time you could be pre-treating, you know!"

Both Bob and Louise startled at the vehemence in Rudy's voice as he stared her down. Rudy himself seemed startled by the outburst, and wilted in on himself. Bob shook his head in amazement at the transformation fading away before their eyes.

"The.. The longer you wait to start cleaning that up, the worse it will be to try and get out," Rudy stammered, the firm, authoritative tone suddenly gone from his voice. "I just.. thought maybe your ears were worth more than Logan." If the look Rudy had given Linda was a peasant fearful of a monarch, the look he was favoring Louise with was more fitting for a mortal beholding a wrathful goddess.

Louise seemed rooted to her spot in front of the boy, mouth ajar as she processed the notion.

"Holy shit, Rudy.. You actually stood up to me AND made a good point? What day is this?"

A loud THUNK-RATTLE startled Rudy away from the door, where an annoyed Logan and his friends had just failed to yank open the door to fling in another open industrial-sized can of chocolate sauce. The sauce coated the lower half of the door, but had also splashed back on the boys and pooled on the sidewalk. Bob shouted angrily at the mess, grabbing up the store phone to call the police as he took a picture with his old cell phone.

"Crap! Scatter!" Logan shouted, but the boys slipped and fell over each other as they scrambled on the wet, gooey cement. A stream of curses, punctuated by each additional picture Bob snapped with his phone, drew the attention of most of the street. Across the way, Jimmy Pesto couldn't decide whether to laugh at the ruckus in front of Bob's, or concentrate on looking for any of his own children in the mass of sticky boys.

Louise, grinning like the cat who swallowed the canary, crossed her arms and smirked at the spectacle. "Dance, my puppets! DANCE!" she cackled, drawing furious shouts from the boys outside. "Thanks for playing right into my trap, Logan! And by the way, my BOYFRIEND just loves chocolate!"

Bob wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a cue or not, but Rudy stepped up to Louise's side at the proclamation, and delicately kissed her on a sticky cheek. The girl managed to fight off most of a blush, keeping the malicious grin on her face as a police car's siren grew closer on the street. His daughter pressed her face against the glass to watch as the boys outside scrambled to escape down the alley.

"Dad, is the alley door locked?!"

He was almost completely certain it was. But where Louise and her odd enemies were concerned, it never paid to assume you were safe. Bob quickly ducked back into the back to double-check the door. To his relief, the lock was in place. To his concern, the doorknob rattled loudly just as he finished checking it.

A muffled shout from what was either Officer Julia or Cliffany reassured the restaurateur that at least some effort was being put into catching Logan and his gang of vandals. After a moment or two of listening to the sounds of a scuffle outside in the alley, Bob denied his better judgement and unlocked the door. Officer Cliffany regarded him with a tired smile as she sat on top of Logan, who was slowly turning blue.

"Nothing to worry about! We caught your vandals! Okay, we have one of them. Do you want to give your statement now? Or should I come back later, Bob?"

Bob stared at Logan's pleading eyes for a moment before leaning back against the door frame in the manner of someone who would greatly enjoy watching someone suffer and who had all the time in the world to appreciate it. "I'll go ahead and give it now. I mean, Sooner is better, right?" Logan's oxygen-starved face turned a remarkable purple shade.

The shorter form of Officer Julia joined them, dragging two more boys who she had handcuffed together. Each boys wrist was attached to the others ankle.

"Um.. wow. Officer Julia, that's some creative cuff work," Bob chuckled in spite of himself.

The short woman scoffed, wiping at the chocolate sauce on her uniform with a growl. "Slippery little bastards, but they aren't running away like that. Cliffy, give me your spares and I'll lock down sleeping beauty, there." Logan squeaked an objection as his right wrist was quickly fastened to the left ankle of one of his companions by way of a plastic zip cuff, and Cliffany borrowed the hose behind the store to clean the punks off before hauling them into the back of the police cruiser.

"Oh, and we'll probably want to charge them with assault on my daughter Louise," Bob considered as he wrapped up his statement to Julia. "She told me Logan and his goons doused her with chocolate sauce right before this happened." Julia nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, bring her down to the station tomorrow and we'll get her statement, too." Tipping her hat, the shorter cop turned to join her partner in loading the cruiser.

It was almost half an hour before everything was straightened out and the police on their way with their soggy, somewhat sticky quarry. Bob sighed, unrolling the hose as he paced around the store to wash off the front door and sidewalk. Somehow, the trouble Louise seemed to have a natural affinity for always seemed to come to the restaurant to roost. Maybe not just roost, he thought with a groan. Sometimes that trouble built a nest and raised a family of little problems of its' own, which had to fly away before the big issue would finally leave the Belchers in peace. He dearly hoped that this was not a sign for how Louise's entire life was going to be. He worried about the girl. Sure she put on a good show of breezing through life without a care in the world sometimes, but there was bound to be a limit to how long her spirit could hold up under the constant pressure of problems like the ones she seemed to have an uncanny ability to attract.

Bob caught a glimpse of a prospective customer trying the still-locked door of the diner, and turning away with a shrug. Any other time, Bob would have called out to the man and tried to bring him back. At the moment, he was feeling a bit too run down to bother. Besides, Lin was right. They'd already had a pretty good day, for a Tuesday. The day had grown late while he had been dealing with the two officers and the overgrown delinquents, and there was really no point in opening back up for the evening anyway, he thought as he sprayed the door and windows on the highest pressure setting. As he worked his way down the glass, he noticed the figures inside and felt his mouth drop open. Louise was sitting at the front counter, staring intently into a bowl of some liquid that her precious ears were resting in. Every so often she'd lift the hat and wring it out, appraising it for a moment before returning it. A drained bottle of club soda sat beside the bowl, providing a clue as to the substance they were soaking in.

Rudy was making a rather clumsy effort to mop up the sauce from the floor, and had worked his way over to where the girl sat, giving no indication that he found her bare head as startling as Bob did. To his further shock, the boy leaned over and kissed Louise on the cheek again. Louise said something, which sent the boy fumbling in his pockets for a moment before he produced his inhaler. The device was pressed into the girls hand, and when she looked up to say something he managed to catch her in a kiss on the lips. Instead of slapping him viciously across the face, Louise merely rolled her eyes and pretended to shove him away. A faint grin graced her blushing face.

Linda's voice broke Bob out of the stupor he'd fallen into watching the duo, as she peered out of the door leading to their home. "Bobby? What's going on?"

"Lin, I think... I think we'd better plan on Rudy being around for a while."


	5. Reflection at 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon reflection, Louise would realize that slapping her feelings away had never, ever worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Louise's perspective of the events before and after chapter one. Another character from the show appears in this chapter, because Linda was right.

"An actual little red flag?"

"Yes! He had one ready in his desk! He stuck it out in front of us and goes 'That's a red flag!' I mean yeah. That's a red flag, this is your desk, and this is my middle finger!" She gestured grandly with the appendage.

Rudy snorted into his chocolate milk at the image, fighting to keep from spitting the drink he'd just taken all over himself. "So what did you do?" he asked as soon as he regained control of his rebellious beverage, leaning back against the oak tree that was the lunchtime refuge of the two teens. The many leaves shaded his face in overlaying opacities of hushed emerald green. Louise did her best not to notice as she continued with her tale. Her cheeks burned feverishly as she directed an inner monologue towards the infuriating way her eyes kept glancing over at him. 'Why why why?' she thought in exasperation, forcing her brain to keep focus on the story she was telling and NOT examining the familiar way Rudy's amused smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. 

"Psh, what do you think I did? I told him that Dad was dead and we were all acting out because of our unbelievable grief."

Louise crossed her arms dismissively, but smirked in satisfaction at the laughter that burst into being at her reply before continuing the story of how her father had vanished into the walls of the restaurant. Rudy applauded politely at the conclusion, which prompted her to stand and take several bows before seating herself again beside him. She eyed the discarded carton of chocolate milk questioningly as her companion investigated his sandwich.

"You're gonna break out, you know," she couldn't resist reminding him as she tapped the empty container he'd bought from the lunch room meaningfully.

"Eh, it's just a little rash," Rudy replied as he made a face at the almost certain death by homogenized taste and gluten-free nightmare that his mother had sent with him to school. "It'll be a little uncomfortable but I might as well enjoy something during lunch." He rambled. Louise staged a very phony cough, catching his eye with a stern and annoyed glare. Rudy startled a little and grinned up at her. "Other than the company, I mean."

Louise's stomach did a strange little twitchy flip. She ignored it as she looked back to her own pastrami on rye. "Well duh," she finally spat out. She watched, in spite of herself, as Rudy nibbled at the food in his bag. It was no wonder he was one of the shorter boys in her class (though not THE shortest, that honor was still retained by Pocket-Size Rudy), considering how his mother fed him. Gluten-free, nut-free, egg-free, soy-free... his food was practically FOOD-free! She'd complained to her parents about it, expecting her father to be similarly outraged that one of her classmates was being slowly starved to death with food substitutes and Styrofoam, but Bob had been only mildly perturbed.

"Stay out if it, Louise," he'd lectured. "His parents know more about his condition... or conditions, than you do. I know you mean well, but don't go stirring up trouble sweetpea."

Sweetpea. Ugh. She hated the nickname. Her father only employed it when he really, really was hoping she would let something bothering her blow over without challenge or incident. Well, fat chance of that. She was feeling absolutely disgusting, sitting here eating actual food, while her... friend... was doing his best to weather the clearly unpalatable storm that was Hurricane Smother and the ongoing saga of overprotection that was, in her opinion, nearly bordering on abuse. 

Her cheeks were still burning. At last, she let out a furious, indignant squawk and loomed over into his space. 

"Ugh, okay Rudy ends now, because I can't do this anymore."

Rudy looked up, startled by her comment and proximity. His face was so close that his shocked expression reminded Louise of a surprised owl. "Do what?" His eyes, chocolate rimmed with a spark of green, caught the light and the sounds of the recess across the field faded and rushed back like a surging tide. Louise caught the breath she had forgotten to take, and turned to suppress the urge to fall into a coughing at the sudden air in her lungs. She twisted around to point at the sandwich clutched in his hands as she cleared her throat. 

"I can't take watching you struggle to eat that... Crap. What the heck is that?"

Rudy glanced down at his sandwich speculatively, pulling the bread apart to inspect the contents. "I think it's pimento cheese, or something that saw pimento cheese once."

Louise bit her lip, stared back down at her own food and growled. "Okay, enough of this stupidity. Here, welcome to the world of actual lunch. Try not to die."

She grabbed for Rudy's sandwich, throwing it to the squirrels and replacing it with a goodly portion of her own sandwich. Rudy looked up at her again, cautiously evaluating her expression. "Are... Are you sure? I mean, I'm fine with-"

Louise jabbed a finger into his ribs. "No, you are NOT fine. You realize that you eat like an anorexic prom queen? I saw Zeke pick you up one handed the other day at the restaurant and yell for Gene to 'Go long!' for crying out loud!"

Rudy squirmed uncomfortably. "Zeke didn't mean anything by it, he's just a little-"

"I know Zeke didn't mean anything, but it's-!" 'Worrying me', her brain insisted, even as her better judgement shut her mouth down.

"Look Rudy, you need to take better care of yourself. We're gonna be in high school soon. They eat the weak for breakfast there! You won't last a day."

\-----

There was no denying it. Louise had a problem. A problem with chocolate mint eyes, muddy-auburn colored hair and asthma.

And there was no one she could tell.

She certainly couldn't tell her family, at least. Her mother would coo and carry on about how 'finally little Louise is interested in boys'. Tina would start asking questions that made Louise's guts want to riot. Gene would laugh and their dad would get awkward and weird. Aunt Gayle hadn't had a normal interaction with the male human species since disco's long-deserved death. 

Outside of the family was worse than that. The other girls in Louise's class were utterly worthless, unless you wanted to talk makeup and perfume and boy bands.

Louise groaned at the realization. Oh no. Her mother was right. She needed a girl friend.

Resolving to never, ever mention to her mother that she'd been correct, Louise tapped out a quick message on her phone and waited. Ten minutes later, Jessica's voice was haranguing her for details on why Louise insisted she needed to move and change her identity.

"So, you like this guy? What're his qualifications?"

Good old Jess, cutting to the chase like a greyhound on steroids. Louise flopped onto her bed.

"I don't know!" she fumed. "He's just... there! We eat lunch together, he thinks I'm fun to be around, and doesn't mind me venting about whatever. He's a good listener, I guess. Thinks my family is awesome, but his sucks so it's not like he's got something good to compare to."

Jessica harrumphed at the description. "And?!"

"And?" Louise echoed, annoyance creeping into her voice, "So now I'm realizing I know how he laughs, what his walk sounds like, and that he's got these... really... pretty eyes."

Jessica's laugh was amused, but not cruel. "So your sister is into butts, mustaches do it for your mom, and your thing is eyes?"

"Yes... No... I don't know!! God, why is this happening?! I don't want or need this!" Louise pulled her pillow over her face to stifle a frustrated scream. 

Jessica's teasing tone softened a bit. "You like a boy. Say it. Louise likes a boy."

Louise's muffled voice contorted into the growl of a cornered animal. "Never. We don't know that. Shut up! Why did I call you?!"

"The harder you fight it, the harder it'll be to get over. Just admit it."

Louise flung herself to her feet, tossing her pillow aside as she began pacing her room. "I can get over this. Ha! I can! I've done it before when I clobbered Boo Boo!"

"Boo Boo?" Jessica repeated, confused. "Wait, what are you doing? I didn't think that really worked, did-"

"I'm gonna smack this crush or whatever clean offa Rudy!" Louise declared, ceasing her pacing to point dramatically at the ceiling. "So help me god, I will NOT suffer liking someone like a sissy punk!"

\------

"So... Did you do it?" Jessica asked when Louise called the next night, a bored note of defeatism plain in her tone as she waited for the inevitable poor ending that she believed this saga could only have.

"Jess," Louise's voice was soft and a little squeaky with emotion. She had done it, alright. "Jess, I did it. I walloped him."

"So," the redhead asked with a sigh, "how was court?" Louise had barely heard the question. A thousand thoughts, each more shocked and amazing than the last had been spinning around nonstop in her head ever since Rudy had given her that strange look and said those even stranger words. She licked her lips nervously. 

"Jess, I like him, and I hit him. And... And then he told me that he likes ME."

There was a shuffling noise on the other end of the phone, probably Jessica sitting up in shock. "Wha? Why? To get you to stop?!"

"I'd already stopped. I just... I mean, he gave me his back up inhaler."

Jessica made a gagging noise in response, completely at odds with the near-euphoric giggle that was fighting to escape from Louise. "Oh gross."

"No. No it's... Don't you get it? He gave me agency over his freaking LIFE. I decide if he lives or dies!"

There was typing on the other end of the phone, and Louise's FacePage app chimed in time with the poke that was, without a doubt, caused by her friend seeing that Louise's relationship status was denoted by an exclamation mark.

"Just how hard did you hit that poor boy, huh?" Jessica asked, bewildered. 

"Hard enough to regret it immediately," Louise sighed. "I told Rudy I thought he was a masochist."

Jessica's laugh was relieved and more than just a little astounded. "Well, he DID agree to be YOUR boyfriend. There could be something to that. Keep me updated."

"Point taken. And why? You need to live vicariously through me?" Louise let a flicker of smug, warm pride flare at the thought. 

"Nah, I wanna see how hard you screw this up."


	6. Misdirection at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise discovers a unique bit of strangeness that she brings to her relationship. She and Rudy have to figure out a way to get around it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually thought I posted this last weekend?

"Careful!"

Rudy set his mouth in a stern line as he fought down the urge to remind Louise that he was being careful, darn it all. Just because she was nervous about the prospect of doing this, let alone with him, did not mean that he was not being careful. He was the very definition of careful. "I'm really starting to second-guess myself for coming over here, Louise. It seems like you don't really want to do this. At all." His girlfriend rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, the very image of an irritated rebellious teenager. She could be the poster child for the entire concept, Rudy thought to himself. He struggled to conceal a smirk at the notion of what they were doing, alone in the Belcher residence. For all her bravado, it seemed Louise was afraid of the aftermath and the inevitable disapproval of her parents. 

"Look," Louise began, looking away and licking her lips nervously. "Look, I didn't organize this little event just to be stopped now. I went to a LOT of trouble to get everybody out of the house and I'm not going to lose this opportunity. Who knows when we'll have another one?" She shifted position with an uncomfortable groan. "I mean.. Especially once Mom figures out what's happened here. She'll probably ground me for ten years. Maybe twenty! Look Roo, I think we both know that this could very well end up being a one-time thing. I really want to make sure to take full advantage of the opportunity, you know?" 

Rudy made a thoughtful grimace, eying the top of her head. "Look, I've never done this before. Are you sure it's supposed to be all... I mean, it's just... The bleached sections you did look kind of... odd," he replied, eyeing the haphazard chunks of reddish hair anxiously. There was no rhyme or reason to how the coppery stain was spread throughout the messy strands. Instead of the bold, straight chunks of vibrant color like Louise had been meticulously planning for days, Rudy had a sinking feeling that his girlfriend's scalp was going to look like an unwashed paintbrush.

"Look, I tried doing it myself and it turned out to be the deconstructed horror you're looking at," Louise groused, crossing her arms and staring at his shirt instead of meeting his gaze as she sat impatiently atop the toilet lid in the Belcher family bathroom. "I am admitting defeat on that, no question. But I'm out of the bleach stuff I smuggled in here, and the entire family is going to be home in about an hour. Either they can be mad at me for looking only somewhat amazing, or they can be mad at me for turning into a camouflage tortoiseshell-haired mutant while they were gone. Which would you rather hear me gripe about for the next two weeks?"

Rudy shook his head wonderingly at the strange twists his life had taken since he'd met Louise Belcher. He would never have imagined that he'd be obligated to become a part-time hairdresser when they agreed to date each other. "Okay, did you use the bleach neutralizer?" he asked, turning his attention to the somewhat soggy, stained and bedraggled instruction sheet that Louise had left sitting on the sink next to the array of bottles and brushes that had been spread around the surface. It looked like a wizard's domain had seeped into the tiny bathroom, he thought, wrinkling his nose at the smell of chemicals. A very, very pungent wizard's domain.

"Yes, I rinsed about a million times and I used the stupid shampoo in the kit!" Louise complained, glowering up at him with a fury that would have been somewhat scary if it wasn't topped with a mottled-patterned mop of shaggy hair. "I did the stuff it says to do, now can we just get on with it?"

Rudy tapped the sheet of paper with a finger, still reading. "I mean seriously, Louise. It says here that the bleach stuff can stain pillowcases, hats..."

"Look, Rudy..." Louise attempted to interrupt, only for the boy to continue on as if she had never said anything at all.

"...And you know how mad you'll be if you mess up your hat? If you mess up your hat, don't come complaining about how it's MY fault!"

"I'm NOT, okay?!" Louise howled, nearly crying with frustration. "I promise you, I did all the stuff on the list! ALL of it!"

"All of it except for getting someone to help do it if you're not trying to do your whole head of hair," Rudy observed drily, folding the bleaching instructions up and inserting them back in the box they'd come from. Louise looked rather embarrassed at that comment, and he quietly appreciated the flush-faced look of sort of cute mortification while it lasted. It was an expression he didn't get to see very often.

"Okay, I get it," Louise muttered in a chagrined voice, staring down at her hands. "I'm impatient and got ahead of myself, and I messed this stuff up and dragged you over here to try and make you fix it. Now, could you please pretend to have some sympathy over how I panicked when I got that stuff on my scalp and it started to freaking burn like crazy? I kind of had to try and get it all off fast."

"Geez, Louise!" Rudy gasped, forgetting his annoyance and the adorably pouty look on her face at the news. He touched her shoulder tentatively, leaning over to look her in the eye. "Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She sounded more put out than hurt. "I just hate having to ask for help. You know that."

Rudy straightened, smiling a little in relief and in gratification. "Well, I appreciate that you asked me to help you. Have you got another pair of gloves?"

"Maybe?" Louise replied hesitantly. "If there are, they're in the dye kit." A faint blush dusted her cheeks as she looked up at him with a shy, grateful grin. "You're the best, Rudy. Have I told you that?"

He pulled on the filmy plastic gloves with a flourish, managing a bout of embarrassed giggles at the praise. "Well, like I said I've never done this before, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let me just look over this real quick... Okay, so the color goes in here... you shake it up and add this top..." he read aloud from the dye instruction sheet, earning a victorious grin from Louise. "Okay Louise, this sounds pretty simple. So I just put this on the lighter sections and go over it with the little brush? I think I can do that." He reached for her hair as Louise sighed with relief, shoulders sagging as the nervous tension drained from her posture.

"God, thanks for doing this Rud-ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Louise squealed suddenly, jerking to the side as Rudy attempted to gather a handful of her hair into his hand, jostling them both as she pulled away from him.

"Okay, what the heck was that?" she demanded, pointing at the baffled boy as if he had done something a lot more bizarre than touch the top of her head.

"That was... my hand?" Rudy guessed, giving her a look of complete and undisguised bewilderment. "What did you think it was?"

Louise sputtered for a moment in unintelligent bluster. "I don't know! Did you have to do it so... weird?!"

Rudy's expression was sliding rapidly in an avalanche past confusion and plummeting towards annoyance. "Louise, I barely touched your scalp."

Louise shook her head, motioning for him to try again. "Whatever. You startled me or something. Just... Nevermind, let's just... get this over with. That was weird wasn't- eeek!"

This time a spatter of hot pink dye on the shoulder of her tee shirt accompanied the motion as she squirmed violently away from Rudy's hand. The two of them stared at each other in confusion. At last, Rudy frowned in suspicion.

"All I did was...? Louise, what do you do when you get your hair cut?"

"I tell the gal to just trim the ends and not get handsy with my head. Why?"

Rudy reached out and ran a single finger deliberately across her scalp, sending Louise squealing away from him again. He grinned with understanding, even as Louise stared up at him in stomach-twisty shock.

"Louise, it's your hat!"

"I'm not wearing it, dummy!"

Rudy was undeterred, setting the bottle of dye aside and crossing his arms in smug finality. "Yeah, but you are pretty much all the time. You've protected the top of your head so much that your whole scalp is really sensitive!"

Louise gaped like a caught fish, almost falling off the toilet lid. "Is... Is that a thing? It doesn't bother me when I touch my head, though!?" She ruffled her hands through her copper and black-streaked hair, frowning in consternation as her touch failed to elicit the same reaction as her boyfriend's.

Rudy took advantage of her distraction and reached out his finger again. He carefully touched her left ear, causing her to squawk in surprise again. "That's because you know that you're doing it. It's like... people who are ticklish can't tickle themselves, you know? Same thing." He paused to use his inhaler before chuckling. "No wonder you're twitchy as a basket of baby kittens."

Louise was blushing again, cheeks burning under the scrutiny as her boyfriend grinned at her. "I'm not a kitten-basket," she muttered sourly, earning a snicker from Rudy in reply. "So what do we do? I gotta get the rest of my hair done, but I can't see up there to do it without getting dye all over the place!" She grimaced at the splotch of smelly liquid resting on her right shoulder. "Well, MORE over the place, anyway."

Rudy hesitated, then gave her a bashful grin. "Do you trust me enough to hug me?"

\-------------

When the rest of the Belcher family arrived home, they found a sheepish Rudy, who was covered in bright pink stains sitting next to a stunningly black and hot pink-haired Louise on the family sofa.

"Oh!" Linda yelped, stunned by the abundance of the bright color. "Louise Belcher, what on Earth did you do to your hair!? And... Wait! Why's Rudy looking like he fought a melted popsicle?!"

"Louise, did you dye your hair after we told you no?" her father demanded angrily, crossing his arms as her siblings peered around him, astonished at what they were seeing.

"Psh, no." Louise retorted, sounding annoyed. "Rudy did it. For a price."

"Guilty." Rudy agreed, waving a hand attached to a remarkably pink-stained arm at his girlfriend's parents. "I charge in hugs."


	7. Separation at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things must come to an end. And so, it seemed, had their relationship. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for this duo, or is this ship on the rocks for good?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is late, late, late! So sorry for the delay!

He was going to throw up.

"We can still be friends, right?"

He was absolutely gong to throw up. Two days ago, Louise had said the fateful words to him. They had crawled inside the gaping, hemorrhaging wound she'd torn in his chest like a cat hoping to sit in a warm lap.

"We can still be friends, right?"

He'd thought things were going well. The two of them almost never fought in anything but playful banter. And.. Somehow, that was the problem.

Louise had decided that he was too reasonable, too calm, and basically, that he was a doormat. Louise had decided she wanted someone who'd push back when she pushed first.

Louise had decided to break up with him and go out with that wise ass Dustin from her chemistry class, and it was supposed to be okay because they could still be friends, right?

No. Not right at all.

Rudy stared at the ceiling of his bedroom in his mother's place. It was stark clinical white. Boring. Safe. He remembered Louise laughing about the idea of painting a collapsing ceiling of deadly spikes up there once. Like something out of Indiana Jones, she'd said.

They had looked up photo references, calculated paint cost, and predicted how badly his mother would react if she ever looked up and noticed it, but they'd never actually gone through with it.

Maybe that was the problem, he didn't actually go through with much, did he? He was mostly sarcastic words and ideas. Louise was a powder keg actively trying to explode. The fuse to Rudy's own temper was miles long, and barely explored. It had smoked with dim embers of repressed anger fitfully ever since Louise had declared their relationship through. He had gotten little say in the matter. It was... annoying. Rudy grumbled to himself as he considered the unfairness of the entire situation. Yeah, they could still be friends. He'd accepted the notion without hesitation, like a starving dog, eager for even the opportunity to gnaw an empty food wrapper so long as it still at least smelled like something edible. He was a bit embarrassed as he made the comparison for himself. 

He did have other friends, but the Belchers were like family to him. Family that actually wanted him to get out and enjoy life instead of slowly suffocating in a sterile environment or forgotten in the waiting room of a restaurant.

Yeah, they could still be friends, because what choice did he have?

With a groan, he pushed himself out of bed, ignoring the rumpled blankets and discarded homework that spilled to the floor. He needed to be doing something. Maybe helping the Belchers out by helping cover the shift Louise was ditching for her date would get his mind off of how disgusting he felt for a while.

Sneaking out from under his mother's nose was never easy, but Rudy managed it when the woman headed down the hall towards the bathroom. With any luck, she'd fall for the "mom, I said goodbye to you before I left!" routine again. A really confused expression sold the deception, he'd learned. Louise had appreciated the act the first time she'd seen it. He shook off the thought with a frown and somewhere in the back of his mind the temper-fuse smoked quietly. Anyway, his mother's mobile games drew so much of her attention as of late that sometimes she really did forget vast tracks of time. It was a handy thing, he thought as he slipped out the front door and set his feet walking in the direction of the wharf. 

The street in front of the restaurant was a madhouse when he arrived. Rudy stared in disbelief at the crowd that had spilled out into the street. Shouts of appreciation and anger mixed together into a cacophonous roar. Bob himself was only just visible, still inside but trying to force his way out the front door through the immobile crowd.

The teenager shook his head in resignation at the sound of Louise's voice coming from the middle of the crowd, and carefully slipped in.

In the middle of the boisterous crowd of teenagers and a few college students, Louise and a strange man were shouting taunts at each other someplace up ahead.

"Come on, Ears! Put up or shut up!"

"How about YOU shut up, so we don't have to put up with your annoying voice?!"

Spotting Dustin Shaw in the mass of humanity, Rudy headed that way. "What's going on? What's Louise doing?"

Dustin spared only the barest glance towards Louise's ex. "Louise is gonna fight some college kid named Logan."

Rudy felt something in his heartbreak-mangled chest seize. "Logan Bush? Tall blonde jerk?"

"Probably? I don't know. I just wanna see her sock the guy."

Rudy left the unhelpful Dustin, slipping carefully through the crowd until he was on the inside ring of the spectators. Dimly, he could hear Mr. Belcher's voice shouting that he'd called the police. Louise, furious with her head bare, snarled at the taller Logan, who held her beloved ears aloft.

"Come on, don't you want these back?!" The amused venom in Logan's voice only enhanced Louise's rage-filled tunnel vision.

Rudy groaned inwardly. He was about to get killed. Well, so long as it was for a good cause. Setting his jaw, he stalked out in between the two combatants, stopping with his arms crossed over his chest and a long-suffering glare directed at first one teen and then the other. "Um... Could you stop that, please?"

Logan laughed at the interruption. "Oh look, it's sucky-Stieblitz. What're you going to do, cough on me?"

Logan's friends laughed. Louise's eye twitched. The long, long fuse to Rudy's temper flared to smouldering life as Logan taunted him.

"You gonna cry for your mommy so loud you make us all deaf?!"

The crowd hooted in approval as Logan danced around Rudy, still keeping Louise's hat aloft and out of her reach. Rudy glared flatly at the display. The fuse sizzled thoughtfully.

Louise made an attempt at doubling back while Logan was distracted, almost succeeding in tripping the tall boy as he ducked back around Rudy.

"Oh my god, Logan I swear, I am going to feed you your own hair!"

The college boy laughed out loud. "Oh, is that what's in those burgers your dad makes? That explains a lot!" Louise screamed in frustration as Rudy began to glare outright. Logan made as if to pull Louise's ears onto his own head, dodging the girl's attempts at grabbing him.

"Come on, Louise. What're you gonna do? You gonna cry to your wuss boyfriend? You gonna-"

The fuse had finally run out, and Rudy growled. "Oh my god, are you ever going to shut UP?!"

Louise froze, turning to gape at her suddenly infuriated ex. The crowd joined Logan in staring in shocked surprise. Rudy threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "Holy mother of crap, it DOES understand English! Thank heaven for small favors! What the hell is wrong with you? Are you stupid or just more attention-needy than a newborn?!"

Logan blinked, glanced around at his friends, and grinned, trying to shake his startled reaction to the unexpected outburst off. "Pft, look you little troll.."

"No," Rudy snarled. "Answer me. Are you STUPID or are you DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION? Is it a learning disability or a personality disorder? I really want to understand what's going on in your head, here."

"...What?"

Rudy made an exasperated noise, rolling his eyes skyward. "Okay, stupidity it is, then. I'll use small words. Louise does not like it when you steal her hat. Give Louise her hat back now, please. Stop stealing Louise's hat. Go find things to do that are not stealing Louise's hat." He made a gesture as if dismissing kindergartners to go play.

Logan's surprise turned to fury as Louise growled "stay out of this, Rudy!" Rudy gave a surprised flinch, momentarily forgetting Logan. The crackling fury sputtered, suppressed temporarily.

"Yeah, Ruuuudyyy, listen to your little giiiirlfriiiend!" Logan jeered loudly, getting a few hoots of amusement from his companions. The burning focus of Rudy's angry attention snapped back to the older boy in an instant and began to build.

"First of all, not that it's your business, but she's not my girlfriend. Secondly, why are you talking like a four year old with the world's most embarrassing speech impediment? Does that make you feel like a big man, stalking and assaulting high school students and then talking like a toddler who just learned to use the toilet all by himself?"

Logan rushed forward, shoving the younger boy. "I oughta...!"

Rudy just stared at him with indifference. "Ought to what? Hit a smaller, weaker, younger person for pointing out you're an overgrown preschool bully? Asking you to stop embarrassing yourself? Telling you that you should quit indulging your kleptomania? What, Logan? Be sure you explain it to me. If I'm going to get hit that's fine, but I'd like to know why first."

"You're dead, you little-!"

Logan swung a fist, startling a shriek out of Louise. Rudy flinched, even as the roaring anger that filled his senses rooted him in place long enough to fall over as he was struck a glancing blow. Logan crowed as the younger teen groaned. "How'd you like that? Logan Bush takes no crap from wusses like you!"

To the surprise of the crowd, Rudy wearily got up. "Ow..." he hissed, rubbing at his jaw. "Okay, I'll admit it definitely sucked, and I don't care for it. Now give Louise's hat back, please."

Logan stared at the younger teen, agog. "You got a death wish or something, Stieblitz? Go running home, you little freak."

Rudy clenched his jaw for a moment, willing the burning vortex of inarticulate outrage to cool enough for him to put words together once more. He took a deep breath. Then another. "I'm asking you nicely, and you don't seem to understand me. Does anyone here speak UTTERLY DAMN STUPID?! I'm running out of patience for this. Some of us have lives beyond acting like they're still in preschool."

Logan darted back toward Rudy, fist upraised. He pulled up short when Rudy's response was just to brace himself once more. "Run. Go on! Run!"

"Why? You don't run from rabid animals," Rudy retorted, earning a harsh shove to the ground. Louise ran over to him, frantically checking to see if he was alright.

Rudy accepted the prompt to use his inhaler, unsure if the dizziness he was feeling was appropriate to the situation or not. The medicine was like a splash of water on his brain, instantly cooling his anger and bringing what was previously a highly-developed instinct for self-preservation screaming back to the forefront of his brain to flail helplessly at what had happened while it had been absent. What in the world had he just DONE? While Rudy's ability to deal with the situation was flagging rapidly down to zero, his ex-girlfriend had taken up the battle with gusto. Following his example, she was choosing to attack with words instead of fists.

"Congratulations, Logan," Louise spat. "You proved you can steal a girl's hat and beat up an asthmatic non-violent high school student. You're so amazing. I bet all your friends are real impressed! We all know that's the kind of heroic badass the girls love to see, a guy who can beat up someone smaller, weaker, and with asthma!"

The kids crowding the sidewalk began to mutter amongst themselves. A few broke away with comments about how weird the whole thing had gotten. Logan began to shout, trying to regain his audience.

"Hey! No, wait! Come on, he was begging for it! You heard what that little shit said!"

Officers Julia and Cliffany suddenly burst through the dwindling crowd, with Louise's family close behind. "SCATTER!" someone shouted as Logan was seized by the officers. The crowd dispersed in seconds, leaving Rudy and Louise to be grabbed by the Belcher parents.

"Oh! Oh! Oh my god! Rudy sweetie, your poor face! Gene, go get me a ziplock of ice!" Linda hugged the boy, who smiled weakly- wincing at the bruise already forming on his face.

"Not before I take some pictures of this for a lawyer," Mr. Belcher retorted, grabbing Rudy and Louise and pulling them back into the restaurant with him. "Keep that.. That violent psychopath away from my restaurant and my kids! That's the kid with the stinking chocolate sauce!"

Tina glowered at the older boy. "Wow, I bet your social life is something. Something bleak, desperate and lonely, like the audience for an Adam Sandler movie. Grow up."

Zeke and Jimmy Jr. ran up from across the street, catching only the end of the event that had unfolded across the street. "This guy buggin' ya, T? Want me ta put th' fear'a some real hurt inta him?" Zeke asked, glowering at the college boy.

"Not necessary, Zeke. He only picks fights with the infirm and weak!" Gene put in, holding the door open for his sister as she entered the restaurant.

"Oh, my poor little Rudy! You're gonna be okay, sweetie!" Linda cried, holding the teenager in a tight hug as she pressed a bag of ice to his face.

Mr. Belcher stepped outside to speak to the police, returning with Louise's battered hat. "The uh.. The police want to know, Rudy, if you want to press charges. Against Logan. For beating you up, I mean."

"I need to think about it and talk to my mom," the teenager groaned at the thought of explaining how he'd come to be in such a predicament.

As her father returned to ferry the information to the police, Louise scoffed, leaning against the counter as she dusted off her ears and returned them to their proper home. "Pretty impressive, I guess. Kind of an over dramatic way to convince me I should take you back, though. Honestly Roo.. White Knight to the rescue? How cliche."

Rudy pulled the bag of ice over his right eye. "You kidding? After this, you'd have to beg *me* to take *you* back."

Louise opened and shut her mouth in shock. "What... What were you doing here, anyway, you jerk?"

"Came to cover your shift. I figured you'd ditch for your date."

Tina smirked. "Whoa, it's like he's psychic. That sounds just like what was happening before Logan came in."

Louise fumed. "S-Shut up!"


	8. Designation at 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's in a (nick)name?

Regular-Size Rudy was a nickname, and one that Rudolph Steiblitz had embraced. With his multiple health quirks, which were arguably made worse by his mother's obsessive coddling, there was not a lot that others considered "normal" or "regular" about him. At least his height was typical of his age. It might not be much, but it was the foothold that he needed to start eking out an identity for himself other than "That kid with asthma who's going to die any day now".

Rudy was so very tired of that particular moniker, even if he did use it to his advantage from time to time.

Given that he already had a nickname, it was somewhat surprising when Zeke began calling him "Rae Roo". The older boy seemed to enjoy greatly the look of momentary consternation that passed over Rudy's face as he was caught off guard by the new moniker. Zeke's thrilled crow of "Rae Roo an' J-Ju, hot dang I'm two fer two on th' rhymin' names! Hey Louise, how 'bout I call you Lu-Lu?" broke Rudy's moment of contemplation. Or rather, Louise's outraged shriek of "I'll murder your face, Zeke!" did.

Rudy forgot about the event soon after, and was caught by surprise again when Louise herself addressed him as "Roo" a few days later as he was entering the Belcher restaurant.

"Hey Roo, what're you doing out?"

Rudy blinked at the familiarity that Louise was gracing him with, which also seemed to draw the attention of her siblings and mother, who deemed the interaction "Aw, so cuuuute". Shaking off the stares, Rudy plunked himself down on one of the bar stools that lined the front counter of the restaurant.

"Just looking for something to eat. Dad forgot to buy groceries yesterday, and I got tired of waiting for him to come back from the store."

Linda laughed at the response before Louise gave her a harsh glare. "Oh honey," she cried, aghast. "Are you serious? I thought you were just being sarcastic!"

Rudy gave Louise's mother a self-conscious smile. "A little of both. Um... I mean there's stuff, but nothing I want. And I got bored being home alone after an hour or so. So uh... I thought I'd come down by the wharf and see what was going on."

Gene looked up from where he was stuffing napkins haphazardly into the dispensers at booth four. "This is what's going on! Behold how interesting our lives are and be amazed!"

Louise leaned on the counter, resting her chin on her crossed arms. "Yeah, it doesn't get much more exciting than the pre-dinner lull. I mean, if you could see this place during the actual dinner lull you'd be impressed, but this is as good as it gets for now. Whaddaya want?"

Rudy glanced over at the menu board that hung above the line of booths that Gene was straightening up. "Well... I don't know. I don't get to go places like this often.."

"Ah," Louise agreed knowingly. "Your mom doesn't let you go into dives."

"Louise," Bob's voice grumbled from the kitchen, a note of warning clearly present in her name.

Rudy startled at the interruption, turning to see the Belcher family patriarch peering out of the small service window with annoyance in his gaze. "Oh! Um, hey Mr. Belcher!"

At the boys wave, Bob raised a spatula-clasping hand hesitantly. "Hey... Um... Regular-Size Rudy." The older man's hesitance melted a bit as he regarded their new customer. "You know... Rudy... You should try the burger of the day! I mean, unless you're allergic or something."

"Oh spew," Louise huffed, closing her eyes and refusing to acknowledge the death glare her father was firing directly at the back of her skull. "Dad, you haven't sold one of those all DAY! No one likes pickles that much!"

Bob grunted in irritation at Louise's statement, but Rudy perked up slightly.

"Pickles?"

Sensing he might possibly be selling his first special of the day, Bob zeroed in on his quietly enthusiastic audience. "Yeah! I call it the 'Dough No You Dill-n't Burger'. It's a regular cheeseburger, but I added ground-up dill pickles to the beef, and there's a dill-infused glaze on the bun. Oh, and then there's more pickles served on the side. It's tangy and delicious." After a pause, he felt compelled to add "If you like dill pickles." as a disclaimer.

Rudy, to Louise's considerable surprise, replied with a cheerful cry of "I'll try it! I like pickles!"

"What? Okay no. Seriously, don't encourage him when he comes up with this stuff, Roo. You'll just give him ideas!"

Rudy crossed his arms, now determined to get to the bottom of this strange new nickname. "If I don't like it, I'll let you keep calling me that and I won't even ask why."

"Oh-ho-HO! I am going to keep calling you that! You just wait and see!" Louise's jeer was proven triumphant a few minutes later when Rudy, who did indeed like dill pickles a lot, discovered that he didn't quite like them enough to get past a triple dose of them. True to his word, he refused to ask Louise for the source of her odd new nickname for him. There wasn't a lot "Regular" about him, truthfully. Having the moniker cast aside by Louise was a bit troubling at first, but soon "Roo" became normal coming from her. In fact, it became more than normal, it became sought-after.

Louise, for her part, remained exceedingly glad that she had not had to explain that Zeke's new nickname for Rudy had given her the entirely too-adorable to be entertained notion of Rudy as an overly-coddled kangaroo joey, barely allowed to interact with the outside world. At least, not in front of her family. Her reputation would take a hit if she admitted to associating him with something so cute on her own.

And hey, it was kind of fun, right?

And interesting, in an entirely not-regular way?

Sometimes, years later as they began discussing their plans for the future, she briefly entertained the notion of telling him how the nickname got started. But he never asked, so she conveniently never had to tell.


	9. Reconciliation at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well obviously they were going to get back together! But that didn't mean Rudy was going to be a pushover about it. For the first time, Louise was made aware of the fact that Rudy could, if he wanted, just walk away. And it didn't sit right with her at all.

"Alright, Rudy. What's it going to take to get you to stop being mad at me?"

Louise's tone was teasing. Slightly smarmy and condescending, as if she thought that this was a game that she was being roped into, and she was just humoring him by playing along after the events of the previous day. The restaurant was slow, as it usually was on Sunday afternoons, which meant that it was the ideal time for giving the little diner a good cleaning without inconveniencing guests. 

Rudy paid no attention, at least visibly, to Louise's attitude as he scrubbed down the front counter with the new citrusy antibacterial solution Mrs. Belcher had bought.

"I'm not mad, Louise."

The girl snorted in disbelief, spinning around slowly on one of the bar stools. When her rotation came to a halt she wasn't quite back where she started, necessitating a nudge off the tile floor so that Rudy was once again front and center in her field of vision. 

"Right, right. You're not mad. That's why you haven't asked me yet. Sure. That's totally believable."

Rudy dropped the scrubbing sponge back into his tub of cleanser with a grunt. After taking a moment to center himself, he raised his head to glare levelly at Louise, who was smirking. Smirking like she had his number and they all knew it.

"I told you, Louise. I'm done crawling back to you." He waited a beat before adding "I thought we were just going to be friends?"

Louise's mouth twitched into a frown for a moment. She rallied herself almost immediately, however, pasting the smirk back on with brazen confidence.

"Rudy. Seriously. You and I both know that..."

His glare turned a bit acidic, and he crossed his arms. "We both know what, exactly, Louise?"

"That you will! I mean, why else are you HERE?!"

Rudy rolled his eyes before turning to retrieve his sponge and beginning to work on the counters once more. As he turned his back on the girl, he pointed out softly that he worked there.

Louise's voice had a razor's edge of hysteria running just beneath the surface as she sputtered. Even the arrival of Mort the mortician from next door didn't curb her outrage.

"You... You can't DO that!" she finally spat out. "No! That's..."

Mort eyed the flailing Louise as he sat down on his usual bar stool. "Hey everyone. What's that great smell? It's like a produce section in here!"

Rudy waved his sponge, smiling sheepishly. "Non-bleach anti-bacterial cleanser. Mrs.B. found it in that new supermarket downtown. You know, the one with the exotic food section?"

Mort's eyes lit up in recognition. "Sprouts & Stalks, right? Teddy was telling me about that place. They have really interesting stuff in there. Purple potatoes, yellow carrots, crazy things!"

Rudy laughed, returning his cleaning to its spot under the counter. "That's what I hear. I haven't been in either, but my mom has. Probably just a matter of time, now. I like that citrus stuff, though. Much nicer to smell than bleach."

Mort nodded, pondering the Burger of the Day on the chalkboard as he spoke. "Absolutely. I clean up next door with bleach sometimes. It's... Not really something I want to associate with food."

Rudy wiped the counter down with a freshly dampened cloth, nodding. "Yeah, I guess so. I ruined a bunch of shirts, too."

"What is WRONG with you?!" Louise demanded, jumping to her feet. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and she was nearly shaking with pent-up fury.

"Sorry Louise, did you want something?"

Rudy's polite, yet impersonal reply caused something to hitch in her throat.

"How... How can you just stand there, talking to Mort about cleaning products like a damn housewife, and just ignore me?!"

Rudy glanced at Mort, his expression akin to asking if he had something on his face. Getting a confused shrug in response he returned his attention to the enraged girl. "Did you want something?"

Louise stormed out of the restaurant, furious. Rudy shrugged and returned his attention to Mort. "Guess not. Anyway, what can I get you?"

Mort winced as the door swung shut. "Still on the rocks with Louise, huh? That's rough."

Rudy sighed. "I have a plan to see if it's going to work out.. She's not going to like it, though."

Mort straightened his glasses, intrigued. "What are you going to do?"

Rudy gave the older man a rueful smile before turning to grab the coffee pot and a clean mug. "Nothing. Just carrying on normally."

"She's going to explode," Bob put in as he exited the kitchen. "I give her a day, and then she'll cave."

Mort stifled a laugh as Rudy set up his usual cup of coffee. "You're in on it, Bob?"

The restaurateur scoffed. "You kidding? I am not losing my best worker. Besides, Louise has been stringing the kid along. If he wants to teach her a lesson about it, I'm on board."

The mortician laughed out loud at the proclamation. "Well, I won't tell. Can I get the special? I'm curious about the star fruit."

Bob grinned. "One The Fault in Our Star Fruit burger coming up!"

The next day was Monday. When he arrived at school, Rudy found Louise sitting on the front steps, chin on her palms and a languid expression on her face as she waited for him. "Ready?" she asked, sounding bored.

"Huh? For what?"

Louise frowned, favoring him with one of her more potent glowers. "You know what!"

Rudy straightened his bag on his shoulder, letting the other students file around him on their way indoors. "Do you want something, Louise? I've gotta go check in with the nurse before class."

The volatile girl growled, bouncing to her feet and stomping off down the hallway alone. Rudy took a puff from his inhaler, shaking his head before heading to class.

Dustin was furious. Louise was feeling like an itchy bee and was taking it out on him. Listening to this... Ranting about that asthma kid in his ear all through lunch was not how he wanted to spend his precious food and social time.

"Oh my god, Louise. Shut. Up. All you've said to me all day is Rudy this, Rudy that... Would it kill you to ask how my day is going?! And I thought you were over your pity-dating thing or whatever it was you had?"

"Pity?! Pity DATING?!" Louise squeaked furiously at the notion.

"Well, yeah.. Considering how you said it was... I mean after yesterday, I think your problem is that you just realized he didn't ever even need you." He snorted at the ridiculousness of it all, picking at a crack in the paper-thin wood grain-patterned veneer that covered the table with his fingernail. The particleboard underneath was starting to show through as he worked.

Louise stared, aghast. "What do you mean, Dustin. And your explanation had better be good."

The boy shrugged, leaving off of trying to peel the surface of the table off and returning his attention to prodding the noodle casserole on his plate like a dissection project.

"I mean, everyone figured you went out with him because you felt sorry for him. But it looks like he can take care of himself. Were you the one who was being pitied, instead of him? I know I've wondered all day how he put up with your ranting..."

Louise stood, kicking Dustin's chair leg. To her disappointment, the seat barely budged. "Oh yeah? Well, like you're such a prize! Screw you. I'm gone."

Rudy glanced up as Louise plopped down in the seat next to him at the table he and Gene were sharing. "Louise?"

The girl glared at the tabletop for a moment, glancing over at the auburn-haired boy to her right with a soft sigh. After a moment, she stopped worrying her lip with her teeth long enough to speak.

"Am... Am I too hard for someone to put up with?"

Rudy glanced at Gene before replying. "You're Louise. You're like... An acquired taste."

The girl seemed to mull that thought over, staring down at her hands. Before the boys could say anything else, she startled, looking up at her brother's happily smiling face. "Gene? Why are you here?!"

"It's pasta day, woman! We all have priorities in life. This is just one of mine!" Gene declared, raising his spoon towards the ceiling as if he were making a declaration of war.

Louise managed a skeptical laugh at that, rolling her eyes at Gene's gleeful disdain for such trivial things as what school he was supposed to have lunch at. Rudy had finished the edible portion of his meal, turning his attention to stacking the pasta on his plate into a towering edifice. Louise's good humor faded and she folded her arms, leaning on the table.

"I don't know what to do."

Rudy shrugged, giving her a non-committal glance as Gene began adding his own food to the leaning tower of pasta, creating a decidedly top-heavy monstrosity.

"Depends on what you want, I guess."

Gene happily added "I want to see Mount Pastavius to reach the moon!"

Rudy chuckled reprovingly at the notion. "I don't think that's possible, Gene."

"Not with THAT attitude," the other boy scoffed, prompting Rudy to laugh softly.

Louise groaned, turning her head to watch her brother add another handful of cheese-caked rotini to the pile. "I just.. I just want things to be how they were."

Rudy cocked his head in Louise's direction, his body language only transmitting curiosity. "I don't understand. What do you want, Louise?"

The pasta tower leaned precariously as Louise raised her head.

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Hm?"

Louise's glare was laser-sharp as she stared at him. "I just realized. You keep asking me that. Why do you keep asking me that?"

Rudy rubbed at his discolored cheek before replying. "Because you'll have to tell me."

The pasta tower tumbled and fell as Louise shoved herself to her feet, all nervous energy and pent-up helpless outrage. "I want us to go back to how we were, alright?! I want you to quit ignoring me! I want... I want..." She looked away, wiping at her damp face with one hand. Conversation in the lunch room lulled as the students at nearby tables looked their way.

"I want you back. You want me to seriously beg?"

Rudy stood up as well, staring thoughtfully at Louise as Gene watched, enthralled.

"I just wanted to hear you say it. Sometimes I feel like the one who does the chasing. Just.. doing whatever you want when you want it and... It's not really a good feeling."

Louise sighed in relief, crossing her arms. "So.. Are we... Good?"

Rudy picked up his tray, and Louise followed him to the clearing station to watch him dumping the contents of the inedible lunch. He glanced over to her as he turned, his face set with with grim finality. "Okay. On one condition, but you may not like it. I wanna pick date night every so often."

"How often?"

He laughed at the defensive growl in the girls voice. That was his Louise. "Every third?"

"Deal," Louise snapped, eyeing him as he tossed his tray into the return area with a clatter of plastic. "So.. Now what?"

Rudy grinned, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Wanna ditch school and go to the movies?"

Louise turned and kicked the door open with a sneer. "Of course I do! What kind of question is that?!"

Gene watched the duo depart before pulling out his phone and texting his father.

'LOUWHEEZE IS BACK!'


	10. Protection at 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise had always believed that it was everyone for themselves in the face of adversity. The prepared prospered and those caught off-guard were just out of luck. But her conscience, to her surprise (and dismay) had been growing stronger every day. 
> 
> And maybe, just maybe, sometimes it might be okay to extend a little bit of protection to someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, Bob's is back! This chapter was not actually next in the lineup to be published, but tonight's new episode pushed it to the front. The next one is a week-spanning miniseries that I'm still figuring out how to clean up. (Wish me luck!) This chapter takes place not *too long* after Inception.
> 
> As an aside, this chapter is dedicated to my Invader Zim Gir umbrella. There's just something about an umbrella with pop up ears that makes it especially satisfying to use.

Louise Belcher fairly skipped the last few yards to her locker, finishing with a twirl that was nearly a graceful pirouette. She grinned as she reached for the combination lock and navigated the scratched-off numbers on the dial by feel. Today was the day, at long last!

She plucked the bright green umbrella from the corner of her locker, tossing it into the air to catch the hooked handle on her outstretched wrist. The motion sent the device into a gentle arcing spin on her arm, and in her head the symphony of All's Right With the World kicked up to a victorious crescendo as she slammed the locker door and scrambled the lock. Today, at long last, it was raining! 

Well, it wasn't just that it was raining. It was raining for the first time since she had purchased a Kuchi Kopi umbrella from the Trending Topic store at the mall. Almost two months of her allowance had gone into the device, and the sky had remained stubbornly clear and pristine for the entire week following. Today, however, the sky had turned cloudy and sent flashes of lightning to illuminate the torrential downpour as water fell by the bucket load. You couldn't step outside without being as soaked through as if you'd jumped fully clothed into a swimming pool, as several students had already discovered. 

Heh, what saps.

Today, the first rainy day since she'd made her very grown-up purchase (if she did say so herself) of an umbrella; she would venture forth with her head head high and her ears perfectly dry as her fellow students scrambled to make do with makeshift trash bag ponchos from the school janitor or by holding their bookbags over their heads. They would all, she was certain, stop and stare in astonishment and envy as she and Kuchi Kopi set out for home, only getting wet when she succumbed to the urge to splash in one of the many puddles lining the streets.

With a sigh of incredible satisfaction, Louise set her sights on the front door of Wagstaff Elementary School. The stragglers rushed around her, but Louise set a much more sedate pace towards the exit. All around her, bedlam raged as students rushed to catch their bus or fumbled for some wet weather protection. Even as the soles of her shoes squeaked on the wet linoleum floor, a bubble of perfect glorious calm hovered around Louise. 

She was prepared. 

She would not get wet. 

She had an umbrella. And not just any umbrella, she had a limited edition licensed Kuchi Kopi umbrella with pop-up ears and push-button operation.

Gaining the exterior doors, Louise slung her umbrella-laden arm outwards, pressing the small black button to automatically deploy the device. In her mind, she chanted the summoning spell from one of her favorite stories in the series. With a satisfying snap, the green umbrella popped open, creating a charming likeness of Kuchi Kopi's head and face, complete with a pair of standing ears held aloft by the tautly stretched fabric. Louise didn't even try to suppress the broad smile that tugged at her lips as the first fat drops of water spattered to impact the water-repelling fabric, beating a staccato rhythm against the bright green canopy she lifted above her head.

"Oh Kuchi Kopi, you scamp," she marveled aloud as she looked up in pure joy, "Is there anything you can't do?"

The large white eyes printed on the outside of the fabric protector stared unblinkingly out into the downpour as she stepped fully out onto the building's stoop, allowing the heavy school door to swing shut behind her with a clatter of finality. The damp chill in the air did nothing to diminish her happiness. Nothing except an even fiercer downpour could possibly make this afternoon any better. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring that image for a moment as she enjoyed her island of wet weather armor.

"Cool umbrella, Louise."

Louise startled, caught off guard by the voice almost directly behind her. She raised her parasol and caught sight of Regular-Size Rudy loitering in the doorway just inside the building's overhand, barely protected against the weather's soggy fury as he stared up at her guardian.

"Is that Kochi Kupi?" Rudy asked, adjusting his grip on his backpack as he looked up at the bright green face hovering over Louise's head with interest.

"Kuchi Kopi!" Louise corrected him reflexively, looking away with an aloof sniff. After a moment, she deigned glance towards the boy again, turning to face him so that he could more properly appreciate the glory that was her own personal shapeshifting spirit animal. After a moment, she realized that she had not yet answered his question. "And yes, I bought it at the mall."

"Cool," Rudy nodded, staring appreciatively up at the erect bear-like ears that topped the umbrella. "I like the ears," he put in, a faint grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "It's very you."

Louise blustered for a moment, caught off guard by the comment. Ever since she'd had that dream where Rudy had invited her to hang out, she'd attempted to make some clumsy attempts at talking to him. For some reason, it was weird and awkward now, though. The fact that Rudy would sometimes say things that moved in a careless, fourth-dimensional leap over and around the cautious walls of casual conversation was not helpful. She still wasn't sure if her subconscious, or whatever that was that she had encountered in her dream had been right. She tried to plan careful conversational feelers that would tip her off if Rudy was interested in hanging out, and he didn't seem to ever plan on letting her use them! It wasn't fair, but he seemed not to notice that she was red-faced with embarrassment over the compliment to her tastes and quirky nature. 

"Y-Yeah, well it's a really cool umbrella for more reasons than just the ears!" Louise sputtered. "It opens with a button push. AND", she declared with insistent emphasis, "It closes with a button push, too!"

Rudy gave a breathy whistle at that, rightfully impressed as she nodded in satisfaction over regaining control of the conversation. 

"Wow," he agreed, "That is a cool umbrella. Nice job picking that out!" 

Thunder grumbled overhead, and Rudy's gaze wandered skyward as a fresh torrent began to beat down. The friendly smile faded from his face as he glanced around her towards the few vehicles still waiting to pick up their schoolmates. Louise glanced back over her shoulder, noting that neither of her companions parents were in evidence.

Oh.

A quick look back at Rudy's hands, one grasping the strap of his backpack and the other still holding the front door of the school open, revealed that her classmate was umbrellaless. 

Oh...

Louise bit her lip, lingering in the doorway that smelled of moldy roofing material and wet concrete. "So uh... You waiting on your dad or just waiting on the rain to die down?"

"Both," Rudy replied with a sigh and a shrug. "I guess I kinda forgot my own umbrella today. Dad's supposed to pick me up since it's Friday and all, but it looks like he may have forgotten." The boy's face lit up in an optimistic smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Still," he ventured, "It's early yet. He might surprise me."

Louise rocked her weight back and forth from one foot to the other, the weight of her steel and stain-resistant microfiber suddenly very heavy in her hand. She realized that she felt terrible standing in front of her classmate, nearly lording it over him that she had a super-amazing protector and he didn't. Kuchi Kopi would not, she was certain, approve. In fact, she felt sure if she looked up at the printed face on the fabric above that it would be looking at her with expectant patience. Well, she'd been trying to figure out if Rudy was interested in actually being a closer friend, this was as good an opportunity to see if he would run in fear from the idea of being stuck alone with her for a while or not. 

"Uh... You know..." she began softly, "There's probably enough room under my umbrella if you... you know... wanted to uh..." Her face darkened in response to the stunned blush creeping across Rudy's face. She fumbled her words, trying to sound casual about the situation. "I mean, not that I'm saying you gotta, just you know... if you thought you might want to stay dry. I d-don't mind." When he stammered out an affirmative reply, letting the door fall closed and stepping out to join her under the green canopy, some tiny voice in the back of her head began humming the All's Right With the World song that had been cresting giddily through her head earlier. This was softer, warmer. Almost comfortable, if she paid attention to it. 

When Bob pulled up in front of the school an hour later in search of his missing youngest daughter, he found the duo still sitting under the broad green face of Louise's favorite character on the school stoop. Rudy was blushing madly and Louise was studiously pretending that there was nothing at all unusual about her staying late on a Friday to shelter him from the unpleasant weather. 

Years later, Bob would realize that this was the point where he really should have seen this coming.


	11. Habitation: Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise would have denied that she had intended to keep the boy for a whole week, but she refused to entertain the thought of leaving him behind, too. Part One of Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, we're doing something different. My attempt at a timeline just seems to be confusing people, so I'm going to just skip it for now. I'm not sure it was adding much other than confusion, anyway. At any rate, enjoy part one of Habitation.

Louise Belcher hummed along as the actress onscreen sang about thelackluster qualities of her bakery's meat pies. 

The girl was stretched out on the sofa, her legs across her clearly squeamish boyfriend's lap as the two of them watched Sweeney Todd together. Rudy winced at the imagery onscreen, forcing Louise to suppress a grin. He was oddly cute when he was grossed out. Since discovering this fact, she had been taking advantage of her turns to pick films for their Friday movie nights at the house to serve up several different flavors of horror.

Physically pinning the boy down so that he couldn't wander off "just for a minute" to escape the film might be a bit of overkill, but whatever. Roo wasn't complaining about it yet, which in Louise's way of thinking meant full endorsement of the situation.

"Ugh," Rudy recoiled from the screen, turning away from the bloody visuals to catch Louise staring straight at him.

He blinked. She blinked.

"Uh... Louise?"

The girl startled, realizing the the visual contact meant the boy was aware of her scrutiny. "Y-yeah?"

Rudy squinted at her skeptically. "What're you smiling about?"

Oh shit, caught watching him and grinning? This was bad.

"Me? Oh... I was just thinking about making people into food, you know, movie stuff," she lied, trying to sound as offhand about the matter as possible.

"While smirking at me?"

Rudy might not be the smartest kid in their grade, but he wasn't stupid. While his tenaciousness was one of the things that typically endeared him to her, at the moment it was incredibly inconvenient.

"Well, yeah," she retorted, mentally flailing for a handhold in the idea. "I was just remembering the-" she trailed off for a moment, but inspiration flashed behind her eyes like a lightning strike, "-the day I told everyone at show and tell about dad making burgers from dead people!" Dark amusement glimmered in her eyes, and she leaned sideways into the cushions with a victorious smirk. Control of the situation was hers once more. "You believed it, didn't you?"

Rudy sulked, crossing his arms. "Honestly Louise, sometimes I think you're capable of anything."

The girl laughed, twirling a bit of hair around one finger. "You know me so well," she grinned.

Rudy's eyes wandered back to the screen for a moment. "Gross," he commented, wrinkling his nose in that unconsciously adorable way that Louise had been quietly hoping to see him do as he caught sight of some new depravity to corpses in the film's pie shop.

"Oh, what?" Louise scoffed, admiring Rudy's discomfited expression. "So you're too good to eat human?" She grinned brazenly. "I hear it's good. Kinda porky."

To her delight, Rudy physically squirmed at the idea. "I don't think I could do it. Too weird."

Louise sat up, pushing herself over on the cushions so that she was nearly in his lap. His reactions to the line of questioning and her proximity were way too much fun to miss. There was an entire swarm of butterflies rioting in her stomach and the only way to get control of them was to be the one making them thrash around. She leaned on the sofa back, giving Rudy a considering look.

"Okay, so you wouldn't seek it out, but what if... like... you were in a survival situation? Like that soccer team that crashed in the mountains? And it was your only chance to live?"

Rudy shifted uncomfortably, considering the idea - much as he would obviously prefer not to. "I... don't think you can really know what you'd do in a situation like that until you're in it," he finally replied.

"You'd do it," Louise stated with authority, crossing her arms and giving him a confident smirk. "Because otherwise you'd be dead. It's survival instinct."

"Maybe," he allowed.

"Definitely," she corrected.

"Why are we talking about this?!" The boy complained. "This is so gross."

"LIFE is gross, Roo. Get used to it."

The twosome sat in silence for a while, watching as the murderous barber met his fate. At last, the DVD booted back to the main menu, leaving them to consider their positions.

"Louise..."

"Yeah?"

"Can you uh... give me some space?"

Louise flopped backwards over the side of the sofa that she'd previously occupied. "Can't, no room."

Rudy grumbled, crossing his arms again in resignation as Louise's father poked his head in the room.

"Hey kids, movie over? Uhh... Louise? Stay on your side, please?"

Louise flung her hands in the air, exclaiming loudly. "God, I am! I'm all the way over here!"

Her father remained unimpressed. "Your head is over there. The rest of you is kind of all over the place."

When the girl retreated back to her own side of the couch, Bob relaxed a bit. "I was just going to see if you needed a ride home, Rudy. It's starting to storm out there and it's probably not a good idea to ride your bike in it."

Rudy favored the Belcher family patriarch with one of the strange, searching looks that always made Bob wonder if the teen's parents ever paid him any regard at all. It was like the kid was experiencing something for the first time and wasn't sure how to react.

"Um, I mean..." Rudy glanced at Louise to gauge her reaction to the offer. "If it's not too much trouble, that would be really nice of you, Mr. Belcher."

Agh, the boy excelled at giving the impression that parental care was some kind of potential trap or unheard-of generosity. It was just one reason Louise's suggestion of casual date night at the Belcher residence was so ideal. No way was Bob entrusting one of HIS children to the lackluster care that apparently went on at either of her boyfriend's homes.

"Not a problem, grab your stuff and I'll run you home."

Louise rolled upright from her position slumped on the sofa. "I'm going, too."

Bob resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the girl turned off the television and faced them expectantly. "Louise, you don't need to go. It won't take but a few minutes."

Louise eyed her father shrewdly. "Listen, either I go and kiss MY boyfriend goodnight at his house or we can do it here and it'll be really prolonged and awkward for all of us, Dad."

Rudy fumbled his backpack, gaping up at her with a startled squeak that nearly bordered on a wheeze.

Bob groaned, muttering a soft "oh god" under his breath as he waved the girl to follow. Rudy trailed after her, struggling to regulate his breathing.

The car ride was brief, but not brief enough to keep the kids from chattering softly in the backseat about their plans for the coming week of their summer vacation. Rudy's bike was tied to the luggage rack on the car roof, and Bob hoped that it wasn't scraping the paint up too much.

At last, they stopped in front of Rudy's father's apartment building. Bob untied the bike, handing it off to the boy before settling back into the car. Rudy accepted a hurried peck on the cheek from a blushing Louise and walked the bike up to the rack in front of the brownstone, and waved before going inside. Satisfied that all was well, Bob started the car as Louise claimed the front passenger seat. He smiled at his daughter, asking if that pathetic display was the elaborate goodbye kiss she'd demanded to get to do. Louise hurriedly told him to mind his own business. Bob laughed out loud at her flustered expression, and eased the car back out into the street.

Louise had begun to regale him with her personal predictions if who in the town would survive a zombie rat invasion when her phone rang.

"It's Rudy?" she commented, confused by the summons. Bob slowed the car for a red light, but raised an eyebrow. "Hello? Roo? What? What're...? Oh SHIT!" The girl unlocked her seatbelt and bolted from the car to sprint back up the sidewalk in the now-steady rain without explanation, leaving her father to shout in distress at the empty seat beside him.

It took Bob almost five minutes to circle back around the block and park, but the worry over what had made his fearless daughter run like a frightened rabbit made it seem longer. Bob raced through the rain, darting up the brownstone's steps as he honed in on the sound of Louise's voice in the distance. He found her sitting in the floor of an efficiency on the second floor. Rudy's head was in her lap, and she was smoothing his hair as he gripped the rescue inhaler in his hands.

Louise halted her monologue of reassuringly-toned threats of violence towards the boy's father at the sight of her own.

"He ditched Roo. His dad. He totally forgot about him and went on some singles cruise. Next time I see that bastard, I'm going to wring his stupid neck!"

Bob glanced into the kitchen, noting the empty cupboard and the incriminating calendar with the whole coming week circled and labeled as "Cruise Week in Bahamas!"

"Roo, it's okay. Really. You can stay with us!" Louise assured the boy, who blinked uncertainly from the floor.

Bob fidgeted at the invitation. "Can't he go back to his mom's?"

"Oh, the Smother of the Year? Great idea dad, Roo can practice breathing all this week, too. I'm not leaving him to that!"

Bob sighed, conceding defeat. "Let's... Grab his stuff. You okay with sleeping on the couch, Rudy?"

"I don't want to be any trouble..." the boy wheezed plaintively. 

"Rudy, somebody needs to let you trouble them," Bob retorted, a spark of fatherly outrage kindling in his chest as he surveyed the abandoned apartment. "And we honestly don't mind it. Who knows, you might be a good influence on Louise."

"Fat chance, I'm gonna corrupt him like an unregulated nonprofit," the girl snorted as she yanked the boy to his feet and demanded he grab his toothbrush. An hour or so later, Rudy watched nervously as Louise's father set up supplies for a temporary bed on the family's well-worn sofa. This whole thing just didn't seem entirely right to him. Camping out in his girlfriend's house with basically no warning was weird, it was intrusive, and it was just... He shivered slightly. It was just alien. Nice, to be sure; but still completely alien.

Mrs. Belcher had come up with an assortment of pillows, blankets, and a few other items for him. Apparently the woman had wanted to run a B&B for ages, and this chance to play hostess was too good to be true for her.

"Aw, don't you worry about a thing, Rudy! We love having you here, sweetie! This'll be fun. Sleepover party, alright!" She brightened. "Oh! Mommy is going to grab a glass of party wine! Be right back!"

"No, no party. Just dinner and then sleeping, please." Mr. Belcher was far less enthusiastic about things than his wife. Rudy watched in fascination as Mr. Belcher's expression quickly fell as he realized he was losing anything resembling control of the evening. 

"Yeah, party time!" Gene cheered, darting for his bedroom. "I'll go grab my keyboard. Tina, you start the conga line!"

"No. Gene, no!" Mr. Belcher called, but Gene was long gone. "Oh god. Okay, let's just have a nice, normal evening, okay? No... No parties."

Louise elbowed her father in the side, grinning with a patronizing gleam in her eyes. "Ahh, right... Right. Probably too much excitement for an old codger like you, huh? Keep you up all night and you won't be able to get up in the morning. It's sad when you get old and tired."

Bob frowned outright at that. "Old? Tired?! I was partying all night well before any of you were even born!"

Louise smiled sweetly. "Tell me again, Father... What WERE the dinosaurs like?"

Linda arrived back in the living room just in time for Bob to glower down at his youngest daughter. "You wanna take on the old man, huh Louise? Fine. We're having a party!"

Louise smirked, evil glee dancing in her eyes. "Old is the operative word, alright!"

"That's it, you asked for it, Louise. Twelve. Layer. Dip. I hope you're ready to eat your words with eight kinds of veggies! Oh! And mini-corn dogs!"

Rudy gaped a little at the display. He leaned over to Tina and asked "Is it always like this?" as softly as he could.

"No, sometimes Dad makes ice cream cone salads and those tiny tacos."

Rudy blinked, completely lost.

"It's layers of baby spinach and a couple of kinds of lettuce, green peas and crumbles of grilled ham in a cake cone, topped with a drizzle of vinaigrette, carrot shavings and a cherry tomato. Dad made them for a city chamber luncheon a year ago and people went nuts for them."

Rudy startled. "Wait, that's really a thing?"

Bob crossed his arms with a smirk that had a slightly diabolical cast to it. For a moment, he reminded Rudy of Louise. "It is a thing. And it is delicious. You will never eat salad with a fork again. We're having Cone-y Island Salad too, Louise! So ha!"

Louise sputtered as if struck before clenching her fists and screeching a reply. "Ha is right! I LOVE your stupid salad cone things! I could eat them every day!"

"Good! Prepare to enjoy them, then!" her father cried, turning and marching resolutely into the kitchen, his wife close behind.

Rudy anxiously edged over to Louise's side, watching warily as her parents retreated. "I don't want to cause your folks any trouble, Louise!" he insisted, nervous at the new turn the evening had decided to take. 

The girl smirked, crossing her arms as she watched her parents buzzing around in the kitchen. "I don't mind causing them trouble. Just loosen up, Roo."

"In the interests of loosening up," Gene announced as he rejoined them, keyboard in hand, "I shall now play for you the Ballad of Last Tuesday's Grilled Cheese. Please hold your applause until the end of the performance!"

A series of modulated fart noises began to fill the apartment. Tina headed towards her room, fanning her face with a magazine and muttering about how it was getting too romantic in the living room for her.

"Hey, this means movie night is officially in overtime!" Louise crowed, dragging her baffled boyfriend back over to the couch. "I think I have one of the Saw series here someplace... Or hey... We could start up the Hannibal series on Netflix!"

Bob's stern warning of "No cannibalism or gore before dinner!" rang out from the kitchen, causing Rudy to sigh in relief. Gene turned his keyboard over to a sampled sound that reminded Rudy of water glasses or wind chimes clinking together, and continued to play in the background as Louise channel surfed.

"Sorry this is kind of lame," Louise apologized, almost too softly for the boy beside her to hear. 

Rudy leaned over against her shoulder, smiling in spite of himself. "It's nice. Really, it is."

The girl gave him an awkward, slightly disdainful glance at the contact, raising an eyebrow as she asked "What? What are you smiling at?"

"You."

Louise's face lit up in a rare blush, and she quickly turned her attention back to the screen. It wasn't fair that he could just say it like that. Not fair at all.


	12. Habitation: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob was REALLY not sure that this was a good idea. Wasn't it basically kidnapping? Or was it, as Louise suggested, more of a rescue? How much was having Louise's boyfriend sleeping over for a week going to change the family's routine? Part Two of Seven

Gene's voice was singing a song to the tune of a Disney musical number. Rudy stirred hesitantly in a cocoon of unfamiliar blankets as a new chorus of "I Just Can't Wait Til I Pee" started up.

"Gene," Louise's father's muffled voice complained from behind the closed door of the Belcher parents' bedroom, "Stop it. Seriously."

Gene readily griped right back about how he would not stand for censoring as Tina's voice broke in asking if requests for musical numbers were accepted. Linda's voice joined in as she began chanting her own off-kilter composition about how she was the mommy and mommies should get cuts in line. Somewhere in the mix, Bob shuffled out of the bedroom and paced off to the kitchen to start breakfast, groaning "oh god" under his breath as he passed the sofa.

Rudy sat up, momentarily disoriented by the household he found himself in. Everything came back to him in a rush as Louise stepped out of the bathroom, spraying her mother and siblings with the pump soap dispenser.

His father had forgotten him. It was truly a new low, considering that the man tended to abandon him for hours so that he could try to meet women on the wine train, in book stores, even the grocery store once. And now it wasn't even enough to leave him locally; now his dad had left the country without looking back for him!

A few tears prickled angrily at the corner of Rudy's vision as he listened to a thoroughly soapy Mrs. Belcher wrestle the empty soap bottle away from a cackling Louise. She didn't even seem to think anything of the fact that her parents were together, and her family was here with her. It was irrational, and he scolded himself for the thought as soon as he had it. Sometimes he was just... so jealous. A twinge of pain that didn't come from a broken couch spring jabbed into his heart. It wasn't right, sitting here in his girlfriend's home. Maybe he should have Mr. Belcher take him back to his mother's. It wasn't as if anyone noticed that he was-

"Hey uh... You up, Rudy?" 

Rudy startled. 

Mr. Belcher was looking in on him, having come back to break up the fight over soap in the hallway. Louise's father grinned sheepishly, scratching at the unshaven stubble on his face. "If you're up for it, I could use a hand in the kitchen."

Rudy blinked owlishly at the idea. Straightening, he pushed a smile onto his face at the offer of inclusion. "S-Sure! Sorry I kinda slept in my clothes, though..."

"No big deal," Mr. Belcher acknowledged with a yawn as he lead the way back into the kitchen. "Considering the line for the bathroom, you'd be hard pressed for privacy to get dressed otherwise."

Rudy shadowed the tall man into the kitchen and watched in fascination as his host began pulling items out of the cupboards. "Y-You know, I wish they didn't ruin your Home Ec. Class," he suddenly blurted out, making Mr. Belcher pause as he reached for the cast iron skillet in the back of the pantry.

"I was... kinda hoping to sign up for it. Before, I mean. It's just all stupid videos and stuff in there again. They don't even pretend it's a real class anymore." Rudy's sock-clad feet were suddenly very interesting, and he was compelled to stare at them instead of at the surprised look on Louise's father's face.

"You're interested in cooking?"

Rudy shrugged, managing to look up and smile. "It always smelled amazing in there." Rudy ducked his head before adding, "Plus I heard it was a lot of fun."

Mr. Belcher grinned suddenly, handing the large black pan to the boy. "We'll see how fun you think it is after I show you how to season a skillet."

"S-Season a...?" Rudy repeated, gasping at the unexpected weight of the object.

When Louise entered the kitchen a few minutes later, her father and boyfriend were using metal cookie cutters as molds for shaped pancakes, as well as the odd fried egg presentation. The intoxicating smell of bacon wafted from the oven, and a large batch of biscuit dough was being coaxed into incorporation as sausage sizzled and popped on the stovetop.

"Whoa, what's the occasion?" Louise asked, searching for her favorite sugary cereal in the cabinets.

Her father gently nudged her back to the table, ignoring her protests. "Well, we do have company over, and Rudy was interested in helping out..."

Louise groaned, flinging a hand towards the ceiling. "Aw damn it, Roo! Now you've gone and set a good example and made the rest of us look bad! He's gonna start expecting us all to pitch in again! I just got him trained!"

Rudy glanced over from where he was wrestling with the bowl of biscuit dough, grinning at the complaints through the large smudge of flour that was now decorating his face. "It's okay, I don't mind. Besides, it's kinda fun."

Her father chuckled at Louise's melodramatic sigh before pulling the sausage from the cast iron skillet and beginning a quick lecture on turning grease into gravy. Rudy might not have the innate perfect sense of taste that Tina's classmate Zeke had, but he was an interested, respectful party who seemed to find the breakfast process fascinating. And honestly, he had to admit that he was having a lot of fun coaching his new pupil. 

"So your folks don't let you cook with them?" Bob guessed, only to nearly drop the heavy skillet at the reply.

"My folks don't really cook. Unless you count the microwave."

"I don't." The reply was nearly a growl, which startled Rudy but seemed to amuse Louise deeply. "I don't count the microwave, Rudy. Okay, grab that flour, let's see what you remember about gravy."

When Linda and the other Belcher kids grabbed their chairs, the kitchen was a banquet. Bob grinned in spite of himself at his wife's reaction to the meal.

"Oh Bobby! It's like waking up in a fancy hotel with an all you can eat buffet! Ooo! Next time we should have crepes! And there's your little helper! Aw, c'mere sweetie! Thank you for helping out!"

Rudy blushed brilliantly at the attention, but bore being hugged and kissed on the forehead with a thrilled expression. Bob hid a frown behind his coffee cup. Did the kid not get any recognition at home? A small gesture of motherly gratitude had him smiling like he'd won the Super Bowl.

Louise smeared strawberry jam on the stack of reindeer-shaped pancakes she'd seized. "Agh! Grizzly attack! Who gave them swords and chainsaws?!" She seized up her fork and plunged it into the food. "Stab! Stab! Oh the humanity!"

Linda patted the girl on the arm. "Louise, don't maul your food at the table, honey. We have a guest!"

Bob caught Linda's hand as she reached for a stack of shamrock-shaped pancakes, instead presenting her with her own special plate. Linda's eyes widened at the gesture.

"Oh, Bobby! My pancakes are heart-shaped?" She clutched her hands to her chest at the gesture, smiling brilliantly. "Oh, you're my valentine every day, Bobby-bear! Gimme a kiss before I get syrup on you!"

Bob caught the quick 'I told you so' grin from Rudy and nodded back before returning his wife's delighted kiss. He officially owed the kid for making the offhand suggestion while they'd sorted through cookie cutters. He filed the idea away as he returned to his own seat, wondering if he should request ideas for his and Linda's next anniversary.

"Yoink!" Gene cried, snatching the stack of shamrock cakes while Tina grabbed the pumpkin shaped ones. "Hm, I wonder what pumpkin pancakes would taste like?" The eldest sibling pondered, reaching for the butter. "Real pumpkin ones, I mean..."

Gene rolled his eyes at the notion and wedged several slices of bacon between his own pancakes. "Just wait til fall. They'll put a pumpkin in anything that sits still long enough!" So saying, he picked up the strange sandwich and took a hearty bite. 

Rudy picked up a smattering of rabbit-shaped pancakes, leaving the turkey-shaped cakes for Bob. As Gene exclaimed over the teddy bear-silhouette eggs, it suddenly hit the Belcher family patriarch that this was the first "grand gesture meal" that the family had enjoyed in quite a while. Usually there was a reason for a big meal; like Thanksgiving or someone's birthday, or because he'd once again forgotten his anniversary. He grimaced. Damn, he REALLY needed to ask the kids for ideas, didn't he? 

Having a special occasion meal "just because" was... Nice.

Bob looked up to see Louise was pouring syrup over an unsuspecting Rudy's food while he was grabbing some toast. Despite her father's misgivings, Rudy merely laughed at the gesture upon spotting it. With a start, Bob wondered if it was alright for Rudy to have his pick of the spread. All sorts of allergens were displayed on the table. Knowing how his health was, this suddenly seemed like it might not be a good idea. Louise noticed the uncertain expression on her father's face and gave him a wink before mouthing "he knows what he can handle" at him.

Bob speared a biscuit and shook his head. Considering the boy was dating Louise, he had damn well better know what he could handle.


	13. Agrégation at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is just a quickie for the holiday, and is sort of a mini oneshot of an idea. Consider it canon to the rest of the story or no.

Louise groaned, clicking the remote control against the end table. Her family was participating in the Downtown Treats and Eats festival and her parents were both insisting on the family doing a group costume theme.

Gene had campaigned hard for the family to depict the cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, facing off with their father. Bob's suggestion of Star Wars characters had also ultimately been nixed with Louise's insistence that she wouldn't portray any "lame, two bit extras".

So now they had no theme, Jimmy Pesto had been lording his Star Trek themed plan over their dad, and most of the family wasn't talking to each other. It was only two days before Halloween. Great.

Rudy was half asleep on the sofa beside her as she channel surfed, oblivious to the irritated air inside the apartment as he caught up on the sleep that the electronic baby doll their high school Home Ec. class had saddled them with had deprived him. The infernal device was currently set on a sleep cycle, which their frayed nerves were grateful for. Silently, she cursed the day she had seen fit to honor her father's suggestion of taking the class. 

"It'll be fun, Louise," he'd said. "You'll learn a lot about doing adult things and being, you know, independent. Isn't that something you're always saying you want? Independence?" 

It had been a deviously clever trap, and she and Rudy had fallen into it like hapless chumps. The rest of the family had found the monstrous doll amusing, until they discovered its penchant for crying inconsolably for hours on end - typically in the middle of the night. She and Rudy had been forced to swap custody of the accursed thing every other day, just to keep each of their households from rioting and destroying the thing. Rudy had been giving the doll looks that could be taken as murderous, for that matter. It was a little disturbing to see him so completely put out by an inanimate object. 

Somehow, Louise had become the "sane one" in their fictitious Home Ec. marriage. She shook her head wonderingly at the thought, giving Rudy's dozing form a glance. He was slumped in an awkward position that made her neck ache to look at. 

Linda's voice crying out in distress jolted the drowsy teenager from his nap and summoned Louise's attention elsewhere. The door of the Belcher parents bedroom was yanked open as Linda stormed out in what had been her black cocktail dress. The hems were shredded along the bottom, loosing long threads which unraveled nearly down to her feet.

"Ah nuts to this crummy weather!" Linda cried, furious. "Bobby! The mice are back here too! And they got into my dry cleaning bag! Oh, my best dress! Ruined! Tell Teddy to set some traps in our closet!"

Bob appeared from the kitchen, holding a small cleaver. The restaurateur was thoroughly out of anything resembling patience, and Louise couldn't help but think to herself that his furious state left him resembling an angry, balding teddy bear. An angry, balding teddy bear who'd already discovered that his pantry had been fouled by rodents this particular evening. "Damn it," Bob cried, "I swear, I will go back in the walls! And when I find those little long-tailed monsters, I'm making pies for the cats in the alley!"

Louise stared at her parents, jaw hanging open a little at the macabre pair that the two of them made. Slowly, a grin formed on her face. "Holy shit. I've got it. I've GOT IT! We will be the Addams family!"

Gene and Tina appeared in the doorway, staring around their father to see Louise triumphantly pumping a fist towards the ceiling.

"Mom! You'll be Morticia! We'll slick your hair down and add some stuff to your dress. Dad, you'll be Gomez! We just need a pinstriped suit! Maybe Mort has something? Oh! And Tina, you can be Granny! Gene can be Pugsley and I'll be Wednesday!" Louise crossed her arms, a triumphant smirk settling into place as she surveyed the group.

Teddy, holding a mouse trap with a stiff, obviously dead mouse in it, peeked from around Bob. "Wait, what? What are we doing? Is this for the costume thing? I'm in. Louise, who am I?"

"Uncle Teddy can be Uncle Fester!" Louise's whoop earned an excited cheer from the handyman. 

"It's happening! I'm part of the group!" Teddy hooted, waving the dead mouse like a grisly flag.

Gene clutched at his face, blown away by the entire concept. "Holy snot balls, that's amazing! Wait..! Louise! Do Addams Family Values! Then your evil screaming fake baby can be the Addams' baby and Rude can be that kid who's allergic to everything! It fits!"

Tina wavered at the back of the crowd lingering in the doorway. A doubtful frown pulled at her mouth. "Uuuuuh.. I'm not sure about this. Why can't we be the Munsters? I could be Cousin Marilyn then!"

Bob, eyes bright with a victorious gleam at the thought of having a group costume theme at last, crossed his arms. "Tina, remember when we were the Equestranauts? You said you'd owe us one? I'm cashing in that favor. Besides, Granny Addams is a richly nuanced character. You can have fun scaring little kids all night. Every piece of candy the kids don't take from you, you can keep. Share it with your friends at school, eat it yourself, whatever. How's that?"

Tina tossed her hair, aloof. "Throw in an extra vote on next year's costume decision, and you've got a deal."

Louise poked Rudy in the side, drawing his half-awake, bleary-eyed attention. "You up for this, Roo?"

The boy glowered with undisguised hatred at the baby doll sitting in the carrier beside them in the floor. "Promise we can blow up that stupid screaming doll after our assignment is over, and I'm up for anything."

Louise cackled with pure vengeful malice. "Spoken like a true Addams!"


	14. Habitation: Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing the Belchers do is ever boring, including cleaning. Rudy's about to have a new appreciation for this.

"SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SEE the Four-Eyed Equestrian and the Four-Eared Fireball face off in the BIIIIIG CHALLENGE!"

Gene's bellowing announcer voice paused as he cued a dog bark sound effect on his keyboard. Rudy, perched atop the lunch counter of the restaurant, twisted awkwardly to look back at the other boy as he pounded out a frenetic combination of sound effects and musical notes from his keyboard, playing to an imaginary audience that apparently lurked in the general direction of the front door.

"Louise?" Rudy's voice trembled slightly as he stared at the dynamic presentation that Gene was putting on for the benefit of the unseen and presumably fictitious crowd he believed was watching them. "Louise, I'm not so sure that this is a good idea."

"Don't worry about it, Roo," Louise advised, pushing the mop cart out of the kitchen. "Mom and dad fully endorse us deciding who has to clean the bathroom this way."

"Really?" Rudy asked as Louise's mother passed through on her way to the freezer with a bucket and an armload of towels.

"Oh yeah, yeah!" Linda agreed with a grin. "No complaints about whose turn it is, about it not being fair... this is much better than when we had the chore wheel." She raised her voice to shout towards the kitchen. "Remember the chore wheel, Bobby?"

Bob walked out of the kitchen with a pair of mops, which he handed off to Louise with a grimace. "Oh god, the chore wheel. That. Was. A disaster. Gene would claim he didn't speak 'wheel', Louise would reset it back to day one every two days... And Tina...!"

"I stand by my decisions," Tina objected, following her father out of the kitchen. "There were never any rules about the chore wheel and bribery."

"Bribery?" Rudy repeated, looking back and forth between Tina and Louise.

"I know what you're thinking," Louise acknowledged with a smirk. "And yes, you heard that right. There was bribery, and it wasn't me." She twirled a lock of hair around one finger, her grin stretching across her face. "How does it feel, Rudy?" Her voice was nearly dripping with false sweetness. "How does it feel? Knowing that you just thought you knew everything about me? Knowing that your preconceived notions about me were wrong? Huh? Huh?"

Rudy blinked, mentally backpedaling from what he'd been about to say but then coming up blank for any other response than to fidget on the uncomfortable countertop.

"Yeah, that's what I thought!" Louise gloated.

"Anyway," Bob sighed, "Letting the kids decide who cleans the bathroom in a trial by cleaning combat is the best solution we've found."

"What about Gene, though?" Rudy asked, indicating the still-monologing Gene with a thumb over his shoulder.

"Well, in the event of a tie, Gene gets bathroom duty." Linda shrugged. "His best contribution is cheering everyone on, though."

"Look, you kids get started," Bob interrupted. "We've got to get the freezer defrosted and cleaned out. Tomorrow's delivery day, and all."

"Yeah, yeah..." Louise ground out, waving her parents off. "Get outta here, you crazy kids. We've got some serious smack to talk and some floors to clean."

The Belcher parents took their gear and headed for the back, with only a muttered comment from Bob wondering if it was safe to leave Rudy unprotected with their children.

"It's not! Okay, see you later when I've crushed this thing!" Louise shouted after them. "Okay Gene, that's enough commercials! Let's go already!"

Gene jogged back to the rear of the store, grinning broadly as he joined Rudy atop the service counter. Raising a ketchup bottle like a microphone, Gene waved dramatically at his two sisters, who stood in front of the kitchen door. Each of the girls gripped a well-worn mop handle sticking out of a common bucket of soapy water. The girls were glaring at each other with enough venom to make Rudy gulp nervously from his perch. There was an energy in the air that was a little frightening, even as a mere spectator atop the stained serving counter. Undaunted by the competitive growls of his contestants, Gene paced the length of the lunch counter, waving back to his imaginary audience before continuing his over-loud commentary.

"Hailing from the apartment we've all shared; she's fast, she's furious, she's the reason safety glasses don't come in clip-ons! The Four-Eyed Equestrian, TINAAAAAAA BELLLLCHEERRRRRRR!" Tina pushed her glasses up on her nose, nodding to Louise.

"I'm going to bury you like a bad report card, Louise."

Gene's keyboard played back a recording of applause which sounded suspiciously like he'd held the device up to the tv set to capture it. The boy then pointed to the glaring Louise, shouting out that "Also hailing from our mom's uterus; she's lean, she's mean, she's the biggest reason for early teacher retirement in Wagstaff history! The Four-Eared Fireball, LOUIIIIISSEEEEE BELLLLLCHERRRRRRRR!" Louise made a dismissive face as she cracked her knuckles.

"You're going down like Gene's math scores, Tina!"

The prerecorded applause roared dimly for a moment before Gene punctuated the trash talking with recordings of their father saying things like "Gene", "Stop", and "Go to bed". Having gained the girls' attention once more, he waved back to the unseen audience from beside a thoroughly befuddled Rudy.

"What..? What are we doing again?" Rudy pleaded, giving each of the Belcher siblings a confused-bordering-on terrified stare. Louise scoffed, releasing her mop to cross her arms over her chest.

"Most Extreme Dirt Elimination Challenge: Floor Edition! C'mon Reg-Size, keep up!"

Rudy squirmed uncomfortably, wincing as the sharp edges of the formica dug into the backs of his legs. "Um... So you're mopping?"

"Mopping? Oh no, this is NOT mopping!" Louise cried. Her shoulders drew up tightly against her neck as she leaned into a furious glower. "Mopping is something pedestrian. THIS is battle and glory! And you'd BETTER be cheering for me!"

Tina chose that moment to speak up, the barest hint of a smirk curling the corner of her mouth. "I think we all know that being cheered on doesn't mean anything in the face of skill."

Before Louise could retort, Gene's keyboard interrupted with a staccato blast of fart noises that sounded suspiciously like the opening bars of the William Tell Overture.

"Contestants," the self-proclaimed master of ceremonies cried, "You all know the rules, but for our special guest's sake I'll repeat them anyway! First to complete the mopping of their designated floor space AND earn a rating of 'adequate' on the Dad scale will be our winner! Please remember that we can only bug Dad to look at the floor about twice before he makes us deep clean the seating and wash the baseboards, so you can't just wipe the traffic areas of the floor down and ignore the corners! Penalty to one of us is penalty to ALL! We will now engage in the customary flipping of the pepper shaker to choose your battlefields!"

"The flipping of the-?" Rudy began, only to see a lidless pepper shaker come sailing through the air from Gene's hand. Rudy quickly grabbed his shirt's neck and pulled it over his face, his eyes already watering in sympathy.

The shaker, only half full, hit the floor in front of the two girls. The loosened lid came free with a clatter, and a small cloud of pepper dust billowed from the container. Both Louise and Tina immediately leaned over and took a deep whiff of the thoroughly seasoned floor. Tina was the first to sneeze, nearly losing her glasses in the process.

"The Four-Eyed Equestrian has won the toss!" Gene cried into the ketchup bottle. "Which field will she choose? The customer side of the counter, or the service side? Remember, audience: the service side is bigger, but the customer side has more nooks and crannies! TINA! WHAT IS YOUR DECISION?!"

Tina pushed her glasses back up her nose, thoughtfully considering her choices. Louise scoffed, rubbing at her irritated nose as her older sister made a show of careful deliberation for the benefit of Rudy, as well as Gene's pretend audience. Rudy wondered if he looked as thoroughly lost as he felt. At last, Tina nodded to herself, and leaned forward to speak into the offered ketchup bottle.

"I'll be taking service side, Gene."

"NO!" Louise cried, pulling at her ears and stamping her feet in fury. "I hate having to clean under the booths!"

Tina adjusted her grip on her mop. "Then it sure sucks to be you, doesn't it?"

"I'll get you for this, Tina!"

"LEEEEEEEEEEEEEET'S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEEE!" Gene cried, triggering a new round of prerecorded applause from his keyboard. "Rude, if you'd be so kind?"

Rudy hesitantly retrieved the threadbare cleaning cloth he'd been given, holding by one corner and allowing it to fall open like a flag. "Um, sorry Louise. Better luck next time?" Louise rolled her eyes and didn't reply, focusing her attention on reclaiming her abandoned mop's handle. As Rudy raised the cloth over his head the girls tensed, eyes on the flimsy white material.

"ON YOUR MARKS!" Gene called out. "GET SEEEEEET.....! GO!"

At the word go, Rudy waved the makeshift flag, and the two girls yanked their mops from the soapy water. While Tina immediately ran into the back, Louise practically threw herself under the back booth. As Gene narrated his siblings' frantic swabbing, Rudy adjusted his uncomfortable position. When he'd offered to help with Sunday cleaning, this was not at all what he'd had in mind.

"THE FOUR-EARED FIREBALL HAS TAKEN AN EARLY LEAD!" Gene cheered, only for Tina to burst from the back room to rinse and wring her mop out before vanishing once more into the kitchen. "Scratch that, I think Tina the Four-Eyed Equestrian is already catching up!"

"Damn it!" Louise howled, throwing a fraught glance back at the swinging door. "This is sabotage! Roo, do something!"

"Um, what can I do to help?" Rudy asked, hesitant.

"You can trip Tina when she comes back out!" Louise shouted as she trotted back over to the cleaning cart to rinse and wring out her own mop. "I'm only on my second booth!"

Rudy laughed nervously as Louise attacked the second booth's floor space. "Um, I don't think I'll do that."

"THEN WHAT GOOD ARE YOU?!" Louise demanded as she furiously returned to her scrubbing.

"You're doing a very good job!" he called after her, stifling a laugh. "Except for the footprints!"

"Footprints?" Louise repeated, pausing in her work to look down at the dirty tracks she was leaving on the newly-cleaned section of floor. "What in the heck?! How? Why?!"

"Someone was too distracted by their company to do proper pre-event prep!" Gene cried, slapping a hand to his face at the dramatic turn of events. "It looks like Louise's turn at taking the trash out to the dumpster is going to cost her precious time! Will the Four-Eared Fireball be able to recover after this spectacular fumble? Stay tuned!" 

"Louise! Catch!" Rudy shouted, pulling off his own sneakers and tossing them her way. 

"Ha! Yes!" his girlfriend shouted, tossing her muddied flats into the closest seat and yanking on the spare shoes. "Your strategy is meaningless, Tina! I have a cheering section AND a pit crew!" 

Tina appeared at the kitchen door, gaping at the turn of events as Louise tied on the unfamiliar sneakers. "Wait, she can't do that! That's cheating! Gene, the rules clearly state that in the event of dirty shoes, a clean pair has to be fetched from upstairs or the contestant has to go out back and clean them up during the contest! There's nothing that says you can just swap shoes with someone!" 

Rudy gave a nervous laugh as Louise raced up to rinse and wring once again, quickly swabbing up her self-sabotage and zipping back to her next booth. 

"Well Tina," their guest ventured, grinning sheepishly, "There's nothing that says you can't, is there?" 

Tina's mouth opened and closed as she struggled to reconcile the idea. Gene hooted appreciatively, throwing a fist in the air and sending a new round of pre-recorded cheers from his keyboard. "Point to Team Fireball! There's nothing in the rules against it, so as the official referee, I have to allow it! And it looks like Louise is making good use of the time Team Equestrian has spent arguing the point! Team Fireball is now in the lead once more!" 

The elder Belcher daughter made an unhappy noise, stomping out to rinse and wring her mop as Louise darted up to do the same. As she ran past Rudy's perch, she grinned up at him slyly. 

"I knew we'd make a great team!"


	15. Habitation: Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudy never intended to confront Gene over the nickname. Like everything else that week, it just sort of happened.

"Bob's Burgers! One hundred percent not made from people! We're the only restaurant in town that makes that claim and is certified accurate by the city health inspector!" Gene shouted, bringing his megaphone to his mouth and adding "Think about it!" In a robotic modulation.

A few patrons waiting in the ridiculously long line outside of Jimmy Pesto's glanced at each other in mild concern.

"That's right! Wake up sheeple!" The teenager shouted, waving his megaphone at them and indicating the large tray of samples sitting on the crate next to him. "And while you're thinking, come try a free sample of the best and only burgers in town that are certified human-free!" A couple of the tourists looked at each other and shrugged, crossing the street to indulge their curiosity and hunger pangs. 

Rudy stuck his head outside the restaurant door, eyeing the few approaching patrons from across the street warily. "Um, Gene? Your dad says to quit yelling that."

The older boy glanced over with a smirk, pointing a finger skyward with an imperious guffaw. "Rude, this is important. We gotta get the truth out there." The robot voice cried "The people deserve to know!" as the lanky teen raised his megaphone again. One prospective customer flinched away from the noise, unamused.

Rudy stepped out onto the sidewalk, holding the door for one of the curious new patrons who had decided to give the burger joint a try. 

"Um, Gene? Why do you keep calling me that? I mean, I guess I don't mind, but I don't understand it."

Gene passed the sample plate to Rudy, who accepted the food tray hesitantly. "Well, Louise calls you 'Roo', what's up with THAT?"

Rudy shrugged at the question, directing a particularly enthusiastic sample-grabber into the restaurant. "Zeke calls me Rae-Roo sometimes when we run into him. I guess Louise thought it was funny, but only to a point." He scratched the back of his head, frowning. "I agreed not to ask about that, so..."

Gene nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. "Yeah, and we all know that Zeke loves coming up with nicknames." Gene twirled the megaphone around his finger, eyeing the smudged glass of the restaurant front as he considered what to say for himself. He grinned at his reflection. "I guess I got Rude because it's short for Rudy.. But also because you're kinda.. Sarcastic. Sometimes."

Rudy glanced up fretfully, biting his lip. "Oh.. Um, I'm sorry if I-"

Gene laughed, waving off the concern. "Nah, I didn't even really realize it until Louise pointed it out to me. I guess I thought it was pretty funny, that no one really seems to catch it. You just slip it in from time to time with a totally straight face."

Louise's brother retrieved the empty tray and ruffled the hair atop the younger boy's head. "Growing it out, huh?"

Rudy smirked in amused resignation. "Yeah. Louise's idea, but whatever, you know?" He straightened, displaying a bit of height that he'd gained over the summer. "Besides.. Um.. It was nice to tell my folks to let me do my own thing with my hair."

"Even if your thing is Louise's thing, huh? Well, you're doomed. I hope you know it." Gene glanced back over across the street to wave at the irate Jimmy Pesto, who waved a fist back as he shouted something into his cell phone.

Rudy shrugged at the notion. "Not really. I mean, we get along pretty good. There's not a lot of big stuff we disagree on. And of all the things that could kill me, Louise is the most memorable way to go. That's why I chose chose it," Rudy replied, watching as Gene did an impromptu victory dance that involved what was probably an excessive amount of sassy hip-shaking in the general direction of the Pesto eatery. The performer ceased his mockery of Pesto as he tried to suppress a snort of laughter.

"See? That's what I mean. Just slipping it in there, and most people wouldn't notice if they weren't looking for it!" Gene choked out. The duo stood in silence for a while, enjoying the breeze blowing in from the direction of the wharf. "Ah, high tide," Gene sighed. "There's something almost magical about it. The sun shines brighter, the smell of dead fish is almost non-existent... it just makes you glad to be alive!"

Rudy indulged the notion, taking a deep breath but sputtering into a coughing wheeze for his efforts. 

"You really need to do something about how you and air aren't on speaking terms!" Gene scolded as Rudy pulled his inhaler from the holster on his belt. "Maybe get yourself a good lawyer, or something!" 

Gene's lecture trailed off mid-ramble as something caught his eye in the distance. "Oh," he mumbled, noticing a vehicle pulling onto the street. "Oh boy.. Buckle up, Rude, the fun wagon just pulled in!"

Rudy blinked, confused by the statement. "That's the health inspector...?"

"Hugo's here!" Gene cried victoriously as a short blonde man with a clip board exited the mobile response unit. "What did you bring me?!"

Hugo frowned profoundly at the two teenagers loitering in front of the burger restaurant. It was probably the most disapproving look that Rudy could recall being pinned with. He discreetly took another puff on his inhaler and tried to hide the empty sample tray behind himself.

"What I have brought you," the health inspector lectured, "Is a warning to stop using the health department's name as an endorsement of your dismal little greasy spoon! We've gotten a complaint as well that you're out here claiming that OTHER restaurants in town use human flesh!"

"Hey!" Gene complained sharply, pointing a scandalized finger at Hugo. "That is a lie! I just said we were the only one certified human-free!"

"It's the same thing!" Hugo cried, furious and already frustrated with dealing with the Belcher family.

"Is not!" Gene retorted, crossing his arms and giving the short blond man a grin that was eerily similar to something his younger sister might sport. "You see, Hugo, we got curious about your investigation. We got MOM on the case! We've taken the liberty of making some calls and checking the public records! Bob's Burgers is the only place in town that was ever investigated for human flesh, and we were found not guilty by a jury of our peers!" Gene crossed his arms, openly smirking in victory.

The taller inspector, Ron, chose that moment to interrupt. "Actually, it was the forensic results..."

"And we're just pointing it out!" Gene complained, flinging his hands in the air as if Ron had just thoroughly proven his point. "Don't you want the public to know the truth, Hugo? Or are you a figurehead for the Man and his dirty lies?" Gene's voice rose an octave to become a panicked screech that the others flinched away from. "You're part of this conspiracy, aren't you?! How deep does the rabbit hole go?!"

"The man? What man?!" Hugo cried, backing away in confusion. "I just want you to stop saying we endorse your restaurant!"

Rudy raised a hand, breaking into the conversation. "A-Actually.. Isn't that what the Health Department does by saying a place is clear of wrong-doing? I mean, I thought that's why the stickers were issued?" He pointed to the line of certification stickers that lined the door. The two adults stared at him as if he had just materialized out of nowhere. He nervously shifted his weight, glancing back and forth between the two men.

"Um, that's what... I mean... My health's not that great, mister...?"

"Ron and Hugo," Ron greeted, stepping past Hugo to address the boy and offer a nod of greeting.

"Ron and Hugo," Rudy repeated, smiling a little at the offer of familiarity. "A-Anyway, my health's not that great. I've got bad asthma, allergies, and well, I won't bore you with the details, but my mom always told me that places with the official CHD stickers were supposed to be safe.."

The boy's tone turned petulant and fretful as he looked back and forth between the two men. "I mean, I still gotta watch what I eat and ask for an allergen list..."

"Oh, you're the Steiblitz boy.." Hugo muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I've spoken to your mother. A lot." With a groan, the short health inspector threw his hands in the air. "Whatever. Yes. I can't stand this part of town. Come on, Ron."

Ron patted Rudy on the shoulder reassuringly, hoping to soothe the worry that was plain on the boy's face. "Your mom is absolutely right. Would it make you feel better if I got something here?"

Rudy's anxious face turned ecstatic. "Would it ever!"

\------

Bob came outside with a paper bag containing Ron's to go order a few moments later, worried and bemused by the van parked outside of his business. "Are... Are we in trouble or something? Hi Hugo." Bob waved haltingly at the sour faced blond inspector, who was honking the mobile unit's horn.

"Just grabbing lunch and reassuring the public," Ron smiled, allowing a smiling Rudy to hold up his cell phone to photograph Ron with Bob before setting out towards where an incensed Hugo was waiting.

"I can't believe you did that," Gene choked, shoulders shaking with barely-restrained laughter as the health inspectors drove off.

"Did what?" Bob asked, cautiously glaring at his son and his daughter's boyfriend. "What did you two do?"

"Official endorsement, Mr. Belcher!" Rudy cheered, posting the photo to his personal tweetspace page. "Official endorsement of you from a city health inspector!" The boy frowned thoughtfully. "Oh.. I sure hope he doesn't get sick today."

Gene burst out laughing, ignoring his father's stare. "Rude," he repeated. "TOTALLY Rude!"


	16. Habitation: Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise didn't know what she was starting when she showed Rudy the old food truck social media account.

There was a lunch rush. An actual, legitimate lunch rush.

Bob's heart pounded in excitement as the door chime jingled for the third time in as many minutes. Patrons were crowding the lunch counter, pushing the abilities of his family to keep track of orders, and his own capability to fill them promptly. Tina stiffened as the door swung open once again, and whirled to retreat from the crowded counter space. The oldest girl was overwhelmed, ducking back into the kitchen and loudly announcing that she was now running the grill.

Bob acquiesced with a nod as he stepped over to the prep station and reached for the closest order slip. Tina was a competent fry cook and a repetitive, methodical job would serve her well while someone who wasn't preparing for a panic attack interacted with the customers. Uh-oh, speaking of which, where was Rudy?

The boy in question cheerfully cried "This is so exciting!" as he carried a fully-loaded bus tub into the kitchen for Louise, who held the door open before directing him to the sink. She released the door and trotted after him, tying on an apron before she turned to rake leftovers into the garbage.

"Less talky, more washy!" the girl barked, stacking the sticky plates and silverware haphazardly into the large sink and cranking the faucet wide open. Steamy hot water began to fill the basin in front of her. "It's a feeding frenzy out there! I can't believe this! What did you TELL them all?!"

Bob glanced over from the prep station in alarm, knife poised over a fresh tomato. "Telling? Wait, um.. Who told who what?!"

Rudy abandoned his post at the sink as Louise turned on the faucet and grabbed the dish soap, darting over to show Bob the screen of his phone. The screen was lit up, displaying the store's long-ago TweetSpace page that their short-lived food truck had employed. Rudy recited the message on the screen as Bob read along. 

'Happy #NationalBurgerDay from the city's only gourmet burger source! #Save when you ask for the #BurgerOfTheDay!'

Bob blinked as Rudy trotted back over to wash dishes for the impatient Louise. "Wait. That's our old TweetSpace but.. Louise, the food truck is gone, though?"

"But the page and all your followers are still there!" Rudy exclaimed, looking back over his shoulder with a victorious grin. "It was Louise's idea, really. See, my post to my page with the Health Inspector guy got a lot of attention yesterday. We've been posting pictures to Foodstagram and also TweetSpace since yesterday afternoon. Kitchen, store room, food.. Everything! People love it, even the non-food stuff."

Louise began grabbing up the wet dishes and briskly drying them, sparing her father a wry smirk. "Rudy is killing it on social media today. I mean, after he posted about eating here on his personal account? Oh man.. Your food is good enough for the kid with bubble boy syndrome, and suddenly everyone wants in."

Rudy frowned at the girl as he placed a freshly-rinsed plate in the drainer. "Don't call me bubble boy," he complained with a grumble. Louise grabbed a handful of suds and shoved them down the back of his shirt. "Wagh! Soapy!" he cried, flailing at the gross sensation.

Bob shook his head in amazement, returning his attention to assembling and plating the flurry of orders pouring in. This burst of interest in his restaurant was too good to be true, but what the heck? They were going to ride the wave of popularity as long as it was feasible.

Louise shoved the cart of clean dishes back towards the prep area and grabbed a double armload of orders before disappearing into the throng crowding the dining space. "Who had the double, no cheese with extra pickles?!" She shouted, doing a hop-skip around Gene to pass the plate to a tall man in a western shirt wearing a trucker hat.

"Did you guys see that semi double-parked outside?" Gene asked, awed at the spectacle as he passed through the kitchen. "It's crazy out there! And... why is Rude foaming at the back?"

"I don't know, and Louise, in that order." Bob sighed, grabbing a mop and helping Rudy clean up the mess Louise had helped make of the sink area as Tina scraped down the grill and started a new set of orders, steadfastly ignoring them all. 

"What's going on out there in the trenches?"

Gene waved a hand in the air as if casting a vision of a besieged faraway fairytale land into the air before him. "I have seen the masses, hungry and rabid. The greatest minds of my generation... Not in this restaurant, of course, but-"

"Gene. Stop," Bob complained with a long-suffering groan. "Get back out there and clear some tables."

The sound of a camera shutter click drew Bob's attention back to Rudy, who was now busily tapping a message on his cell phone. A 'vweet!' denoting a sent message punctuated the silence a moment later. When Rudy raised his gaze back to them he froze in place, embarrassed.

"Uh... What was that?" Bob asked, wide-eyed. Gene's phone chirped, prompting the older teen to retrieve his device. A photo of Bob, eyes rolled heavenward beside a posing Gene, was captioned 'Our motto could be "In a pickle for lunch? We'd RELISH the chance to serve you!" :D'

Bob scratched his head as Rudy's phone chimed in time with several star-shaped icons that appeared on the image displayed on Gene's screen. At last he chuckled in spite of himself. "That's.. Heh... That's not bad."

Gene grinned, nearly beside himself with infectious delight. "You used my joke! Awesome! I'm Internet famous now!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out an impressively-sized mass of lint, depositing it on the edge of the sink. With an imperious smirk, he crossed his arms. "Save that lint, dad! My memorabilia will be a hot item in the future!"

"Gene, no. Get rid of that!" Bob retrieved the trash can and back attempting to prod the soggy mess into the bin. The top half of the lint ball acquiesced, leaving the sodden bottom half clinging tenaciously to the wet surface. 

"That's a lake house and most of a boat you're throwing away!"

Linda's face appeared at the kitchen window. "Hey, are we slinging hash or having social time back here? C'mon Bobby, orders are still coming in!"

Bob nodded, turning back to the grill as Tina carried out a load of lunches she'd completed while the men were distracted. As she vanished out the door with a still-complaining Gene in tow, Bob turned his attention to cleaning off the sink. For a moment, he considered Rudy and his phone. The boy waited patiently, glancing back towards the small service window as the door chimed once again. At last, Bob spoke.

"Rudy, I'm making you our media guy. At least for the week. Sound good?"

Rudy's grin was brilliant. "It's only Tuesday, Mr. Belcher! I won't let you down!"

\---

Five hours later, Rudy was slumped over in one booth, dead to the world as he clutched his phone. Bob prodded the boy gently, waking him. "Quitting time, Rudy. Ready to grab some dinner?"

Rudy squinted sleepily at his girlfriend's father. "Hn? Um.. Yeah, you're.. Wait, you remembered me?"

Bob felt something twist a little in his chest. "Yeah, of course. Ready for something to eat?"

Rudy sat up, stifling an abbreviated yawn. He refused to look up, rubbing fitfully at his eyes. "You bet," he replied at last. His soft voice had a scratchy edge to it. "Just.. Gimme a minute, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, he stood and walked briskly for the back of the dining room. 

Louise strolled over, looking thoughtful. She nudged her dad's foot lightly as her boyfriend disappeared into the bathroom. "Way to go, Dad. I think you made Roo cry."

Bob shook his head, confused. "I didn't do anything."

Louise frowned unhappily at the bathroom door. "Psh. No, his dad is the one who didn't do anything."


	17. Habitation: Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudy had never thought about it, but really research is such a loaded word.

"Wednesdaaaaay! Wednesdaaaaay! It's the best daaaaaaay, that comes in the middle of the weeeeeeek-yay! Gotta go buyyyyy some groceries for Bob-baaaaaay!"

Mrs. Belcher was singing loudly as she pulled Louise and Gene along down the stairs towards the front door. Gene was amused and compliant as he watched his sister turn the simple task of walking out the door into a Herculean task for her mother. "I protest!" Louise cried, clinging to the doorknob as Linda tugged her along.

"Don't be ridiculous, missy! You've been inside all day and you're starting to go all pale and weird, like your Aunt Gale in the 90s! You're getting some sunlight while we run down to the corner store!"

Louise redoubled her efforts in holding onto the building, howling for help. "I shouldn't have to help do dinner shopping! I have a guest! Rudy! Avenge meeeeeee!"

Rudy paused in clearing the table for dinner long enough to run to the second floor landing and salute his departing leader while Mr. Belcher checked the large roasting pan in the oven, muttering a soft "Oh my god," under his breath. The boy returned after Linda's distant voice shouted something about pulling the door off its hinges, a cry that was punctuated by the front door slamming shut. 

"Rudy, just for the record you don't have to avenge her."

"Noted!" the boy called back, moving to peer into the kitchen with curious interest. "Um, so... Anything I can help with?"

Mr. Belcher glanced up from checking the vessel he'd pulled out of the oven. "Nah, the roast is kind of a one man job and I can't really do much about the gravy until Lin gets me those onions to saute. Take a load off, Rudy. Linda and the kids should be back with the onions in a few minutes. Maybe there's something on tv?"

As Rudy turned to leave, Tina's bedroom door opened. The bespectacled teenager stared indecisively at him for a moment before motioning him to come closer. "Rudy, I need your help with something in here." Before the boy could reply, Tina had reached out and grabbed him by the arm, yanking him inside her room.

"So... uh... You like horses?" Rudy guessed, staring at the multiple horse posters and figures decorating the space. "That's... cool, I guess."

Tina pushed her glasses up her nose and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, horses are the most magical of all creatures. Except maybe pegasuses. Or is it pegasi?" She looked confused for a moment, but pressed on. "Anyway, horses with wings. And maybe also unicorns, which are also technically horses. But yeah, pretty much horses. At any rate, I just wanted your help on a story I've been writing." Tina trailed off as she claimed the chair in front of her desk, turning her head to regard him in silence.

Rudy crossed his arms. He wasn't sure why, but he felt as if Tina's magnified gaze was especially penetrating at the moment. "S-sure? Wait, what kind of story is this?"

Tina picked up a notepad from her desk and hummed softly to herself before replying, tapping the surface with a mechanical pencil. "Well, it's first and foremost a romance, but it's set in the zombie apocalypse." When Rudy didn't reply, she continued. "That's where all the greatest romances are set, because there's a palpable threat of mortality and the fragility of life is an ever-present theme. You understand, right?"

"Um..." His hesitation was completely lost on her. With a satisfied nod, she continued. 

"Good. Anyway, it's set in the zombie apocalypse. So in addition to being a romance, it's also a suspense story with some thriller overtones." Here Tina paused again, looking up from her notes to give him another penetrating stare. "That's thriller as in the genre, not as in the music video. Although technically..."

"Tina!" Rudy interrupted, perhaps a little more forcefully than he had actually intended. Louise's sister paused, turned halfway back towards the desk. Her arm was still upraised from where she had been reaching to adjust her glasses. The two of them stared at each other in expectant silence for a moment. Rudy shifted his weight, glancing down at his shoes before looking back up towards Tina. 

"What... What is it that you're wanting my help with?" His voice was barely more than a reproachful mumble. 

Tina didn't seem upset. Rather, she looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. Finally, she shrugged off whatever had given her pause. "Uh... Turn around."

This time it was Rudy who was confused. "What...?"

"I need you," Tina repeated, in the manner of one explaining something terribly obvious to someone very young and perhaps even a bit slow on the uptake, "To turn around."

"Me?" Rudy repeated, pointing at himself as though she could have confused him with some other regular-sized person in the room. 

"Yes." 

"You need me to help you with some zombie story, but by spinning around?"

"Not by spinning," Tina complained, "I just need a 180 to help with my visualization."

"Of me?" Rudy was thoroughly lost. 

Tina wasn't thoroughly lost, instead she seemed to be getting thoroughly annoyed. "That's what I said!" 

"Why...?"

"Research!" Tina retorted once more. "I mean, what kind of author just writes a bunch of stuff down without doing research? It'd just be sloppy."

Rudy scratched the side of his face, baffled. "I don't see what kind of zombie research-"

"Just turn around, okay?!" Tina snapped, her patience finally reaching a blunt and loud end.

Startled, Rudy whirled around, coming face to face with yet another horse poster. Were they supposed to give you the impression that they were staring back at you? He was pretty sure that they weren't. "Um... Tina? Why am I doing this?"

"Like I said, research," the girl replied, voice calm as an undisturbed puddle after a springtime rain shower. Rudy could hear her scribbling something in her notebook. 

After a few moments, the scratching of pencil against page ceased and she spoke once more. "Okay, you can turn around again."

Rudy turned back to face Tina, but hesitantly. "I don't know why, but I feel sort of like I shouldn't have done that. What did that have to do with zombies? I mean, are you trying to figure out how tall they'd be? Planning out lighting details?" He brightened, looking up at Tina with a grin. "Oh! If you're plotting out scene setting, I like to think of it in script format! That way you have to plan out what the setting looks like before you get into dialogue and get distracted."

"Uh huh," Tina replied, paying little attention to his musings of discomfort as she sat scribbling in her notebook. Rudy's previously interested expression fell back into annoyed neutrality. "Now," Tina spoke up, giving him a quick glance from behind her thick glasses, "This is the second-most important part. So for the sake of accuracy, I need to ask you a few questions. Just tell me the first thing that comes to mind."

Rudy took a cautious half-step back towards the door. "Uh... sure." Tina's gaze was now centered on him and it was even more unrelenting than that of her semi-creepy horse posters.

"Okay, how do you feel about zombies?"

"Um... they're gross?" he ventured. "Smelly? Not very smart?"

Tina nodded, scribbling away in her notebook before staring up at him again. "Next question, in the event of a zombie attack, what's your first concern?"

Rudy thought about that one for a moment, eyes rolled ceiling-ward as he tapped a finger against the inhaler in his pocket. "Hm.. Probably a safe place to hide. And uh... medication." He pulled out the inhaler, miming taking a very purposeful puff before replacing it in his pocket. He grinned sheepishly, ducking his head as he grinned in self-conscious amusement at the direction that the questioning had taken. 

"Good points," Tina approved, adjusting her glasses and turning her chair to face him fully. "Now, when you kiss my sister... How would you describe that?"

"I guess that-" Rudy's train of thought, violently derailed, left him to gape nonsensically at Tina. "Wait, WHAT?!"

Tina shrugged, shaking her head at his confused dismay. A hint of frustration tinted her voice as she replied. "I need some kind of metaphors, here. I mean, is it like the subtle life-giving sweetness at the core of a prickly cactus, or would you say it's more like wrestling an angry wolverine with your mouth?"

"I... I... Tina...!" Somewhere in Rudy's brain, the thought to run from the room or at least die right then and there of sheer embarrassment screamed to be heard and obeyed.

The girl squinted at him. "Somewhere in between? Somewhere further out? Come on, Rudy, you have to give me SOMETHING to work with, here!"

The door to Tina's room suddenly popped open behind Rudy, and an energetic Louise bounded inside with a box of candy and an elated cry. "Roo! They had that imported chocolate candy stick stuff at the store and I got some! Check it out, you are going to LOVE... Roo?"

The return to something resembling normalcy was dangerously close to giving Rudy psychological whiplash. He looked back and forth between Louise and Tina in slack-jawed bewilderment before fumbling for something in his pocket. "I'm... Fine..." he gasped, pulling a drag off his inhaler that was punctuated with a sputtering cough.

"Sheesh," Louise sighed, reaching out and pulling him along as she retreated out of Tina's room and back towards the marginal safety of her own. She chuckled at his shell-shocked expression. "Tina cornered you for research purposes, huh? Looks like I got here just in time."

Rudy nodded frantically, clinging to Louise like a lifeline. "I think... I think she's writing a story about us!" he sputtered, casting a worried glance back into the equestrian-themed chamber of literary horrors he'd been miraculously rescued from.

"Oh I *know* she is," Louise countered with a smirk, passing him the package of candy. "I've got dibs on editing it."

"Really? Huh." Rudy nodded readily, only to fumble the candy package as the implication set in. "Wait, you WHAT!?"


	18. Habitation: Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudy has a bonding moment with Linda, that comes about in a very unexpected way.

Gross.

So unbelievably gross.

Rudy held his breath, willing the urge to throw up to go far, far away. He was already covered in someone else's vomit, he didn't need to add his own. Ugh, no more puke thoughts! He mentally rebuked himself, attempting to find his happy place.

The problem was that lately, the Belchers WERE his happy place, and he was currently AT their restaurant and spattered with a copious amount of puke.

Maybe instead, for the moment, his happy place should just be Louise. He focused on the thought of her as Mrs. Belcher's voice darted in and out of his proximity. His girlfriend wasn't at the restaurant to see him in the state he was in, having gone next door with Tina to search for Gene after he'd vanished during a delivery to the mortician at It's Your Funeral. Rudy hadn't been allowed to go. Mr. Belcher insisted that Louise take her sister instead.

"Who knows what could happen to the kid if we let him loose in a mortuary, Lin?" He'd asked his wife.

Whatever might have happened next door, Rudy was certain it couldn't possibly be much worse than dropping off a plate of fries and having a toddler erupt like a gross geyser on him. He hazarded a look at Mrs. Belcher as she dragged over a trash can, clearly fighting her own gag reflex before spinning around to race back to the kitchen.

"I'm SO sorry!" The child's mother fussed tearfully, grabbing the damp dish towel that Linda offered and wiping down her small son, the booth, and her table with the professionalism of a doting parent who was well-versed in this type of trench warfare. "Oh sweetheart, are you alright?"

Mrs. Belcher reappeared, having cleared her head and grabbed another clean cloth from the back. She carefully pulled and prodded Rudy into the small bathroom at arm's length, holding the door open for the other woman as she brought her fussy infant in. "I'm always amazed at the range and accuracy they have at that age," Louise's mother chuckled, her face a little green in spite of her best effort to remain cordial. "I mean, I spit a mean watermelon seed, but babies? They're something else. I couldn't compete!" She abruptly made a queasy face and ducked out of the bathroom. "I'll uh... I'll just get us more towels. Ack.."

The young blonde woman glanced around the oddly decorated bathroom, finally locating the changing table to Rudy's left. She moved over next to him, face flushed with embarrassment and helpless confusion as she spoke.

"I'm so sorry. He's been like this for days. I've been worried, especially since I just went back to work. My mother in law's been watching him, and I know she's at the end of her rope, too. We thought that it might be the formula she bought, but we've tried a couple of brands and still...!" She let out a puff of breath in frustration, digging in the diaper bag she'd brought in the bathroom for a moment before recovering a clean shirt for the child and a plastic bag to hold the soiled one. She continued to speak, voice quavering in the way a parent whose capacity for understanding their situation was wont to do.

It was a tone Rudy was all-too familiar with. His mood cranked sullenly from disgusted and quietly furious to merely grossed out but sympathetic as the woman spoke.

"I called his pediatrician, but they said unless he's running a fever, throwing up isn't all that abnormal. I usually give him some of the bottles I bring from home after something like this, that seems to help, but.."

The woman leaned on the wall for a moment, collecting herself as Mrs. Belcher returned with rolls of paper towels and a collection of warm, damp cloths. "I'm so sorry," she repeated. "I wish I knew what else to say. I wish that I had any idea what else to say or do."

"Oh don't sweat it," Mrs. Belcher retorted with a breathy laugh that implied she was trying very hard not to think about any of this. "It's part of the whole kids thing. You get covered in sick, you don't know why, it's all part of the experience." She cringed a bit as she handed Rudy a clean towel. "Ugh, I'll grant you I couldn't handle much of it, but that's why you have a support system, you know? And don't worry, you'll figure it out!"

Rudy clenched his eyes shut, taking the cloth Mrs. Belcher had given him and swabbing at his face and arms before moving to to his shirt. The worst of the mess gone, he dumped the cloth into the cleaning bin that Mrs. Belcher had toed into the room with them. His stomach was still threatening to mutiny, but he suddenly had an idea. "Um.. Maybe.. Al-Allergies?"

The two women ceased their motherly chatter to stare at him. "What was that, Rudy-honey?" Mrs. Belcher asked, curious.

Rudy swallowed thickly, face flushed at the attention he was getting. Maybe he was wrong, but the idea was worth a shot. "Does... Does the b-baby ha-have allergies?"

The blonde woman had already cleaned up her child, redressed him and had him sucking on a small bottle when Rudy managed to make eye contact with her. He couldn't help but think that the speed that it had happened at was incredible despite the fact that the smell of something like curdled milk was trying to worm its way into his nose. The young mother stared at her son for a moment, lost in thought.

"No.. Well, I don't think so.. Oh... Oh my gosh. Should.. Should they have checked for that?" The woman's stunned confusion have way to quiet anger. "I swear, when I find a new pediatrician.."

Linda hooked the bin of towels with her foot, dragging it back out into the restaurant and kicking it back towards the kitchen with finality. Satisfied that the look of utter displeasure that her husband was giving her from the kitchen door meant he was going to take care of it, she gave the furious woman a much less queasy smile than the one she'd been grimacing at her with. "Oh, you should go see Dr. Szelika, over on Oak! She's taken care of all three of my babies forever! She's in the white pages at the Kinder-Clinic, you can't miss her!"

Linda paused to evaluate Rudy's soggy state and her grin fell. "Oh Rudy sweetheart, just look at you. You're like an adorable little half-drowned chihuahua. Why don't you take the rest of the day off, hm? You've been a busy little bee these past few days!" So saying, Linda edged in and nudged him gently towards the bathroom exit. "I'll be up in a minute and we'll find you something to wear while your clothes are in the wash, okay?"

The blonde woman finished tidying up after herself and her infant as Rudy reached the door. "Your son is so soft-spoken," she said, smiling after the boy. "And so kind. I'm so sorry he got in the middle of this, but he kept it together."

Linda's voice followed Rudy as he exited the bathroom. "Oh, that one's not mine, we're just sort of borrowing him for a while..."

Bob looked up from where he was pulling out the mop and bucket as Rudy walked past. "Oh.. Hey. You okay, there? Maybe you should take a break, uh.. Rudy.."

The boy's breath came in a quick choke, tears stinging in his eyes as he ran out of the restaurant and out of view of the front window.

Bob moved towards the door, but found himself presented with the mop instead. "Bobby, do me a favor and handle the clean up, huh?" Linda insisted. I'll go after him."

\--------

Linda didn't have to go far to find Rudy. The boy was in the alley, leaning against the wall as he wheezed for breath from his short run.

"Oh sweetie," Linda sighed, reaching over to pat the teenager on the shoulder. "I know. It's just gross and you wanna gag, but you don't wanna gag..."

The boy nodded with a shaky smile, pulling his inhaler out of his pocket and taking a puff. "Y-Yeah. I just.. I'm sorry. I mean... You guys are just.."

Linda nodded in understanding, leaning against the wall between the Belcher restaurant and the empty building next door. "Oh, well... Yeah.. I know getting puked on by toddlers is probably not how you planned to start your day. Plus the twenty minute bathroom wait this morning. And Gene's wake up call for the house was kinda PG-13 this morning. I'll talk to him! I'll talk to him!" she assured, waving her hand as if to dispel the memory.

"You're all so great."

Linda flinched slightly, startled at the vehemence in Rudy's tone. "It's a little overwhelming," the boy continued, tears welling in his eyes. "I mean.. The last time my parents paid this much attention to me, I was in the hospital with double pneumonia."

Linda bit her lip, the urge to ask bluntly what was wrong with the teen's parents was almost overwhelming. Didn't they know that your kids are special? That they made every day an adventure that came once in a lifetime?!

"But... Yeah. Thanks again for letting me stay, Mrs. Belcher."

Linda, heartstruck by the genuine gratitude in his voice, dove to grab him in a tight bear hug. "Oh sweetie! We're glad to do it, Rudy. Let us know if you need anything, and I mean anything, okay?" The sticky, damp feeling spreading into the fabric of her shirt suddenly registered in the forefront of her brain, and Linda stood, turning to gag a little.

"That's... Urk! That's not a reaction to you, honey." She waved a hand in front of her face. "That.. That's a weak stomach is what that is! Let's go get you cleaned up, okay? Ugh, I'm throwing my stuff in, too. Again, not a reflection on you, Rudy!"

The boy nodded with the kind of smile a person really shouldn't have when still smelling a bit of baby puke.


	19. Habitation: Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The week is nearly over, and the buzz may be dying down for the restaurant. Louise has a plan to get Bob's Burgers back on the minds of the city's population.

"Friday. We meet again, old foe."

Bob leaned on the front counter, staring idly out into the street in front of the restaurant. Nearly one whole week of good business. It had seemed too good to be true that they could start the summer season off with such a bang, and now here they were, empty at lunch as a steady stream of traffic trickled down the street towards the wharf.

Linda brushed past him, carrying a sign that read "Bob's Burgers Unfair!" in bold lettering. "Don't worry about it, Bobby! Louise and I had a great idea! We're going to protest you! Isn't that a fun idea?"

Bob straightened slowly, as if afraid he would startle a wild animal, and raised an eyebrow at the sign. "Uh.. That helps us how, exactly?"

Louise stepped out of the kitchen, maneuvering her own sign which read "Burger of the day is TYRANNY!", which she had covered with drawings that looked like angry burger-shaped emojis. "Any attention is good attention, I always say! Come on mom! We gotta start chanting!"

The two women stepped out on the curb, hefting their signs and chanting "Hey Hey! Look at us! We are making a big fuss!" Bob groaned and returned to his position leaning on the counter, resting his head on his hands as he resigned himself to closing the eatery permanently for the day.

A clatter from the bathroom door drew his attention as Rudy, frantically wiping his hands with paper towels, emerged. "Oh no.. No no no!" The boy scrambled to grab up his backpack, which he tripped over, spilling the contents to the floor.

"Cymbals. Of course." Bob nodded in understanding. "Because there's no other way to make those two more noticeable and obnoxious."

The boy grinned hesitantly, picking up the instruments. "Um... sorry. Gene is supposed to be out there with his keyboard, too."

The older man groaned, unwittingly sounding much like his eldest daughter, as he ran a hand through his hair. "Oh my god. Okay, explain this to me. All of it."

Rudy fidgeted, nervous under the scrutiny. "W-well, Louise thinks that a protest would bring news crews. And um.. Mrs. Belcher said we could protest the restaurant being... Too good? And... The only gourmet burger place in town? Like you had a monopoly..."

Bob sighed, looking outside where Linda was shouting "Bob's Burgers is unfair! No competition anywhere!" before turning back to the boy and shrugging. "Well, I hope you like chanting, Rudy. Because Lin does not come down from this sort of thing easily."

Rudy cringed slightly. "Um.. What's the Burger of the Day? The board is blank, Mr. Belcher."

Tina walked in, staring in consternation at the rest of the family outside. "Dad, did you know that Gene, mom and Louise are protesting us?"

"Yes, Tina. It's some kind of publicity stunt," Bob replied with a shrug. "As for the Burger of the Day.. I dunno. Something with kale."

"Kale to the Chief?" Tina suggested, earning startled looks from her father and Rudy. "Kale to the CHEF!" Bob corrected, grinning widely. "Tina, sweetie you are GOOD at this!"

The girl tossed her hair as her dad wrote in the name on the black board. "I have lots of talents, dad."

Rudy eyed the crowd forming outside. "I think I'd better go tag Mrs. Belcher out, there's a lot of people out there."

The sound of Eugene's keyboard backed up the rabble-rousing going on outside on the sidewalk. Louise laughed as her mother waved her sign at the crowd. "Come on people! Everybody chant with me!" The sight of Rudy cautiously easing outside to approach them sobered Louise up a bit, though. The energy was teetering dangerously close to frenetic, and now that they had a good audience, it was time for statements, not stunts.

The plan was working great, now to move to phase two. "Mom, we're tapping you out. Take five, babe," she interrupted in the manner of a stage manager.

Linda was flummoxed by the decision. "But..! I haven't even gotten through half my material yet!"

Louise smirked. "Save your best stuff for the 'A' crowd at dinner, babe. Pace yourself. We can't have you getting burnt out! You're our star!"

Placated, Linda handed over her sign and retreated indoors. Rudy took up the position next to Louise, who claimed the megaphone from Gene to shout at their audience. Across the street, Jimmy Pesto was egging his staff and customers to stare at the gathering.

"Good people! We have called you here today to protest the unfairness of Bob's Burgers!" A few uncertain boos came from the back of the crowd. "That's right, how DARE this restaurant monopolize the gourmet burger market in our fair city! Is it because of the domination of this establishment that no other gourmet burger places have opened up in town?"

Rudy punctuated the question with a jolt of his cymbals. Not enough to alarm anyone, but loudly enough to be heard. Louise took a moment to grin at him. He was almost like a coach for playing an audience, keeping her on an even keel. He raised a brow at her meaningfully, glancing at the megaphone in her hand. She nodded.

"Who can say?" Louise continued. "And who can say if the existence of this restaurant, with its insistence on the freshest and best ingredients, THREATENS other restaurants? Ones who just heat up pre-made, pre-packaged food products made in a factory somewhere? Is it fair of Bob's Burgers? Is the playing field level?!"

Jimmy Pesto, red-faced as one of the jars of packaged sauce in his storeroom, was now heading across the street. Apparently he was no longer amused. Rudy's cymbals sounded again as the crowd tried to work out what was happening. Evil glee shimmered in Louise's eyes as Pesto stormed up and grabbed the megaphone away from her.

"I've called the police, young lady!" He declared. "This... Whatever it is, is OVER!"

Louise grabbed the megaphone back, shouting into it. "So you believe that Bob's Burgers is blameless for its domination of the gourmet burger market? That the free market is justified in making this restaurant the best at what it does?!" She demanded, losing the megaphone as Pesto snatched it away again.

"No!" Pesto replied, turning the device off. The girl grabbed for it again.

"Oh", Louise glowered, offended. "So you disagree? Your position is that Bob's Burgers' use of fresh ingredients is an unfair advantage to restaurants that use pre-made TV dinner quality food products?"

"Yes!" Pesto shouted, only to pause as he realized that Louise had turned the megaphone back on as they struggled for it.

Rudy grinned as Gene added a dramatic musical sting to the moment as the police pulled up. "Remember, folks! Jimmy Pesto of Jimmy Pesto's Italian Restaurant thinks fresh food is unfair to businesses that use frozen pre-made food product!" Louise shouted, fist upraised.

"Hey, hey, we won't go! We're with Jimmy Pesto!" Gene shouted, sampling the cheer and replying it in several chords on his keyboard.

"Y-you..! Wait, there's nothing wrong with frozen food being served!" Jimmy complained. "It's perfectly legal and acceptable!"

Officer Cliffany pushed her way through the crowd to stop the shouting. "Let's move along, people. Pesto, you can't block a public thoroughfare like this. I need you to move along."

Jimmy pointed frantically at the kids. "It's not me! It was them! They're over here making slanderous statements about my establishment!"

"I don't remember that happening," Louise replied, struggling to suppress a victorious smirk. "We were staging a viral video for our restaurant, and this guy just comes in and starts taking over!" So saying, she turned and waved at a man holding a video camera. "Did you get enough of that for the channel before this guy ruined it, Randy?" The former filmmaker grinned back at her.

"I got a few good shots, Louise. I'll send you the raw, minus the crap with Pesto there at the end." He glanced over at the other man, shaking his head with disapproval. "Unprofessional, that's what that was."

"You're the man, Randy!" Louise cheered, waving as the cameraman retreated to his sedan. Returning her attention to the police officer, she shrugged dismissively. "Sorry about all that, officer. Did we do something wrong?"

Cliffany shook her head with a frown. "I'll just give you a verbal warning this time, Louise. If you're going to film like this again, you need to get a permit."

Louise grabbed at her boyfriend's shoulder with a jolt that made him flinch a bit in authentic surprise. "Rudy, you didn't tell me we needed a permit!" She looked over at Cliffany as she hissed "we coulda got in trouble!"

"I thought it was going to be less than five minutes of filming!" He protested, glancing at the remaining audience with an apologetic shrug. He took a puff off his inhaler before hanging his head. "That's m-my fault, officer." He and Louise shared a diabolical grin as soon as the adults looked away, and set about sneaking away before they lost the battle not to burst out laughing. 

"Genius," Louise snorted, smacking him lightly on the arm. "That back-up plan was genius!" 

"Oh, I don't know," he grinned, embarrassed. "The protest was the brilliant part." 

As the kids ducked back inside the restaurant and Jimmy Pesto retreated back across the street, Bob peered out the restaurant door. "Hey, we got a couple of people in here. Good job, guys. Um hey... What's.. What's Pesto's deal?"

Gene sniffed indignantly, picking up the signs and his keyboard. "He outed himself on camera. We agreed not to tell the Internet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... how about that new ep last Sunday, huh? Wow!


	20. Habitation: Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the finale of the great sleepover misadventure!

It was Saturday morning, Rudy realized as he stared at the ceiling of the Belcher family living room. A whole insane, mostly wonderful week of stating with his girlfriend's fun, boisterous family was about to come to an end.

He was really going to miss it.

He could hear the Belcher parents chatting in the kitchen as Mr. Belcher cooked breakfast. Mrs. Belcher was laughing at something that apparently involved pancakes.

Tina was loudly complaining about how long Gene was taking in the bathroom. Gene was shouting back that Tina wasn't the bathroom police, and if she was, then she still needed a warrant.

Louise suddenly appeared, jumping onto the couch and grinning at him. "Guess what?" She prompted, ignoring the fact that she was practically sitting on top of him.

Rudy gasped slightly, surprised at the abrupt appearance. "What ..um that is.."

Louise rolled her eyes but handed him his inhaler from the coffee table. "My folks talked to your mom," she informed him with a grin. "See, it seems that your dad may have dropped you off last night," he marveled as Louise kept a straight face for the lie. "And your mom said that it was okay for you to hang out today if we brought you home before dinner!" She smirked brazenly. "Mom leaned on Dad a bit, so after lunch is over, we're shutting down early and going to the beach!"

Rudy used the inhaler, passing it back with a shocked expression. "But.. It's Saturday. Isn't Saturday kind of a big day?"

Louise turned to sit next to him with a wink. "Orders from the top! Get dressed, Roo! We've got a big day planned!"

After using Louise's room to change, Rudy followed her voice to the kitchen, where Gene and his sister were arguing over who was more entitled to the first piece of bread out of the toaster.

Mr. Belcher ignored the ruckus, serving pancakes onto plates for the family. The memory of the big, elaborate breakfast that they had made together came to Rudy's mind, and he smiled as he accepted his short stack of traditionally-shaped food.

As Mr. Belcher moved to pass out more plates, Rudy took a second look at his food. What he'd initially taken for an odd set of scorch marks was a message. The letters were crooked and uneven, as if the chef had not been practicing this sort of thing for long, but the message was clear.

THANKS FOR VISITING

The boy startled, looking over at Louise's plate to see her pancakes were branded with a message as well.

BUNNY EARS

Mrs. Belcher had mostly demolished her own plate, but the remnants of a message had clearly been written in the scattered remains.

Gene's plate bore the message MUSIC INVENTOR while Tina's proclaimed her a WORDSMITH. Rudy smiled to himself. So this was a normal family. As he lifted the top pancake to spread butter between, another message caught his eye.

LOVED HAVING YOU

It was the kind of message that he hadn't known he'd wanted to get his entire life. He looked up just in time to catch Louise's father's eye as he mediated an argument over flavored syrup. Mr. Belcher gave him a hesitant smile and shrug.

Rudy took a bite of his food. It had to be the best thing he'd ever tasted, scorch and all.

The diner was busy for lunch, but the family shut things down at one sharp, cleaning the place up while Rudy and Louise posted notices online and on the door about the afternoon's closure.

The group piled into the Belcher family car, and a few crowded minutes later, were standing at the beach.

"Eeeeesh, the tourists are already here," Mr. Belcher complained, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the other people as he set up an umbrella for himself and his wife.

"Don't be a stick in the sand, Bobby. Look, the kids are having a great time!"

The group of teenagers had found an abandoned frisbee, and a battle of keep away had begun, with each team of two trying to get the disk successfully to their partner. As the game heated up, the throws got more ridiculous and the attempts at interfering became progressively more silly.

Linda tsked at the sight of Rudy as Louise teased him for eating sand on a particularly desperate dive. "Oh, that poor boy is going to burn like a cookie. Rudy, honey! C'mere! Let's get some sunscreen on you!"

The mere mention of sunscreen had the Belcher teenagers running screaming for the water, but Rudy hesitantly returned to where Linda was waving a bottle of chalk-scented oil.

"Aw, my poor little gingerbread vampire, you'll just sizzle away to nothing without some protection!" Linda cooed, doling out some of the pasty stuff to him. "We can't send you home looking like a boiled lobster, can we? Here we go.."

Gene shouted "Yeah! Make sure Louise's boyfriend has PROTECTION, Mom!" about two seconds before Louise herself began chasing him through the shallow tides, screaming in embarrassment.

"So frickin' help me Gene, I will END YOU!!"

Rudy plopped down on a towel to watch the show as Mr. Belcher groaned at the display. "I am deeply sorry for any and all.. you know.. mental scarring you picked up this past week, Rudy."

The boy merely laughed.

Last night's Friday movie date night was cancelled, and though it would be fun to demand a redo on it, it just wasn't feasible due to the need to clean up before taking Rudy back to his mom's place. Oddly, Louise found that she didn't mind. The whole past week had been date night with no privacy, and she was pretty sure that the family would invite themselves along on any further activities other than dropping her boyfriend off.

Tina and Linda waved from the front door as she and Rudy headed towards the car where her dad was waiting. Gene insisted on a high five before the left, announcing that having a brother for a week had been a lot of fun.

Rudy looked a bit flustered by the comment, but grinned. The smile lasted until they pulled onto his mother's street, where it faded into a frown.

"You know.. Rudy.." Mr. Belcher prodded as the boy gathered his things, "We should do this again some time. Sound good?"

The boy froze, looking up as if stunned by the idea. "Y-you really liked having me over?"

"Loved it," Bob replied. "Going to need my media guy to come see what's going on, too." Rudy's expression turned starstruck, as if he'd never gotten so much praise before. Louise broke into the moment, announcing that she was the only one allowed to be so mushy with her boyfriend, thank you very much, before laying a vindictive kiss on the boy before he could exit the car.

"Seeya later," she muttered, trying to look non-committal while blushing. Rudy stumbled over an agreement as he got out. As he waved to the departing car, he decided on two things. One: it was going to suck to have to walk when he went to get his bike tomorrow at his dad's.

Two: Tina's suggestions had been wrong. It wasn't an either-or situation at all. Kissing Louise was like being mouth-wrestled by a bemused wolverine over the last bite of subtle, life-giving sweetness from the core of a prickly cactus.


	21. Tina's Erotic Friend-Fictions Presents: Confrontation at 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She kissed him. She KISSED him! And then she left, and it was so surprising that in the blink of an eye (or perhaps a yank of a shirt), Rudy couldn't remember what was so intriguing about cake-scented shampoo at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently Rudy has more game than I was giving him credit for! As of the Valentine's day episode, Louise has kissed him! Well, I knew this was going to be AU going into it, but I have to say I wasn't quite expecting that this was how it was going to go! So! Instead of retconning this into MY story, I'm calling this a Tina fic. 
> 
> Or you know, both of them. I wrote two treatments of post-Valentine's Day fallout from the show-verse. I don't know which one I like better, so have TWO! (Yay?)

Tina's Erotic Friend Fictions Presents: Confrontation: Version A

"Are we going to talk about this?"

Louise grit her teeth at the sound of Regular Sized Rudy's voice. She did NOT want to get into this. After managing to avoid him for the rest of the week after the Incident, she had hoped that things would be back to normal on Monday.

She'd spent most of the weekend following Valentine's Day pushing away her chaotic thoughts about how she came to grab Rudy by the shirt, yanking him bodily into a lip lock before threatening his life if he ever told anyone. She did NOT want to start down that road again.

"Nope," she droned in response, defaulting to her best 'nothing to see here' bored monotone. "No reason to."

"Because I'd um.. I'd really appreciate it if we could talk about it," Rudy persisted, shuffling the contents of his lunch bag back and forth. "I mean, I was kind of uh- surprised." He looked up, a hint of red reaching his cheeks. "N-Not in a bad way," he clarified. "I just-"

"Ugh," Louise groaned. It felt reassuring, so she did it again. "Ugh, Rudy, you're killing me. There's nothing to talk about. You wanted to kiss Chloe Barbash, but that wasn't going to happen. So I, uh, did you a solid."

Rudy blinked at his sandwich, considering. "I'm not sure-"

"Who is?" Louise retorted flippantly, grabbing up her tray and heading for the cafeteria door. "Life is a mystery!"

\-----

Seeing Chloe Barbash in person in Science did nothing for Louise's mood. A few of their classmates had heard that the two had fought over something the previous week, but no one knew any particulars.

That suited Louise just fine. No one needed to know that she'd tried to pimp Rudy's first kiss out to some shampoo-whore who didn't know what a decent kid the guy was.

Her pencil ground against her notebook page. She glanced down to note that she'd snapped the lead tip off down into the wood. Damn it.

She rummaged in her bag for her handheld sharpener, and began sawing away at the dull end of her instrument. Stupid Chloe Barbash. This was all her fault. If that vacant-brained, shiny-haired, amazing-smelling idiot had even a tiny bit of that human decency stuff then she'd have jumped at the chance to kiss Rudy.

Instead, all she'd seen were faults.

Instead of being impressed and a bit aghast that Rudy insisted on participating in activities that he had no aptitude in and could duck out of with NO consequences, she was annoyed that he tried at all.

No, not just annoyed. It was something more than that. She was embarrassed of his attempts.

Rather than appreciating that Rudy was one of the most kind-hearted and sincere people in the WHOLE school, including the adults, Chloe was too busy admiring one of her fellow scum suckers for his ability to juggle beanie babies.

FREAKING BEANIE BABIES! What year is it?! Louise howled mentally. Who even HAS Beanie Babies anymore?!

She looked down at the shredded remains of her pencil, which was now a mere super-sharp nub held over a blanket of shaved remnants.

"God damn it," she muttered to herself.

\-------

Gene and Tina were prattling on about something, providing welcome background noise as Louise trailed along behind them on the way home. This Rudy thing was getting out of hand. She'd reduced three innocent pencils to piles of shavings this afternoon, her notes for science and history read like a serial killers shopping list, and Rudy had tried again to talk to her between classes.

She stalked into the restaurant, ducking her mother's attempt at giving her a welcome home kiss on the head. Kisses were more damn trouble than they were worth, she thought with a growl.

There was actually a small crowd patronizing the little burger joint, and Louise cheered a bit at the upcoming challenge of avoiding work as much as possible without drawing attention to the self-imposed task.

The door bell jingled as she put away her book bag in the kitchen, and her dad nodded a greeting to her before glancing out the service window.

"Oh hey Louise, isn't that uh.. Rudy?"

Louise froze in front of the sink, hand reaching for the soap as the water gushed. "Which Rudy?" She demanded.

"Um.. Regular Size?"

"Shit, he must have followed me!" She hissed, plunging her hands under the hot water with a wince. "Quick, I need something to make me look busy!"

Bob stared down at his youngest daughter, not even looking back as he automatically turned the burger currently on the grill. "You could do some work?" He suggested, mildly shocked when Louise beamed at the idea as if it was the solution to the perfect heist's one damning flaw.

"Yes! Good! It's the perfect cover!"

So saying, she tied her mother's apron around her waist and grabbed up the order waiting to be plated, assembling it in record time as her father watched warily. As Louise burst from the kitchen demanding to know who the lightweight was who'd ordered a patty melt without fries, Bob sighed.

"Oh god."

Louise bounced between patrons, refilling a drink here, taking an order there, and demanding that the dress code be followed at the door before turning away that damn hippie on skates just out of principle. She purposefully avoided looking at the boy patiently waiting on the barstool closest to the door. He was watching her. She could feel his eyes on her as she darted to refill a diet coke at the counter. Good, he'd see how busy she was, lose his endearing nerve, LEAVE and they'd never speak of this again.

"What can I do for you, sweetie?"

Oh shit of a thousand food poisoned Lobsterfest victims, she'd forgotten that her mom was working the counter. She turned in slow motion, hissing a quiet "Noooo!" under her breath as Rudy looked up at her mother, smiled that "Oh, someone noticed me!" smile that lit up his whole face, and quietly admitted that he'd come in hoping to speak to Louise.

Linda grinned readily, waving at Louise to come to the counter, ignorant of the car crash of a conversation she was attempting to orchestrate.

"Can't, Mom! Super-busy! Working, here!" Louise snapped, grabbing the menu from a startled patron who had only just sat down and barking "You want the special? Yes? Okay! One special coming up, pal!" before scurrying for the back. Linda's longer stride put her in front of the kitchen door before Louise could get there, though, and the girl bit her lip in frustration at being outflanked.

"Go on and go talk to your little friend, Louise!" her mother encouraged, pulling her apron from around Louise's waist. "You've been working really hard! You deserve a break, now shoo!"

Louise turned, glaring at the floor as she walked back to her would-be executioner. "What?" she growled, "What do you want?"

Rudy shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool, and she crossed her arms in annoyance, still glowering at the unhelpful floor. Stupid floor.

"I just.. I wanted to talk about Valentine's Day," he muttered softly. "I mean... Why?"

"Look," Louise snapped, her anxious nerves fraying beyond the point of no return as she lost her temper. "I felt bad for you, okay? You were sad and pathetic, and I put you out of your kiss-virgin misery. End of story."

Conversation around them stalled as the other customers turned to watch the confrontation. Louise didn't move, electing to keep looking at her shoes. There. She'd finally given him a reason. Now maybe he'd lay off and things could go back to normal.

"Oh."

Louise's insides twisted in denial. One syllable. How was it possible to pack so much sad and... and was that disappointment...? All of it into one syllable? She looked up as Rudy stood, and she felt her guts twinge painfully again. He'd been let down by Chloe, but Louise had just torn that heart full of super-sized hope and kindness right out of Rudy's regular-sized chest.

And stomped on it.

In front of people.

"Um... Well thanks for being straight with me, Louise," Rudy muttered, eyes fixed on the floor as if it was the only thing in the whole rotten world that he trusted not to betray him. "I'll um... I'll get out of your hair, then."

Louise's mouth worked as he turned and walked back out the restaurant door. She sputtered, fighting to produce some kind of words or sounds or SOMETHING that would stop him. She was a monster. She'd crushed him. She was going to throw up. She was definitely going to throw up if she didn't catch him NOW.

"Rudy, WAIT!" she cried, bolting for the door as her mother grabbed for her, intending to give her a good talking-to about being so mean. "Rudy, hang on! I- I didn't mean that!" 

As Louise shoved open the door and darted down the sidewalk, Tina smirked from her position behind the soda fountain and adjusted her glasses. "I love being right," she said simply, nodding in satisfaction.

Rudy was only just past the empty building next door to the restaurant when Louise caught up to him. He was startled when she nearly bowled him over, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him back towards the restaurant.

"Rudy, wait!" she panted. "Wait... Just... Just wait, okay? Please!"

He waited, watching as she caught her breath, looking furtively around like a cornered animal before tugging him back to the apartment entrance and through the downstairs door, locking it behind them as if she was afraid of something.

"Wait," she insisted, head bowed and shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry, okay? I... I didn't mean that." Her voice grew small and she almost seemed ready to sniffle as she wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't mean that," she repeated, a harsh crack breaking the sentence at the end.

Rudy stared at her, utterly confused. First she kissed him, then she avoided him, then she insulted him, and now she was crying. It was all very disorienting. A thin thread of an idea wriggled its way to the forefront of his brain as he gaped at the shuffling, uncertain creature that was so uncharacteristic for the girl called Louise. She looked ashamed, like she'd been caught in a lie she hadn't really intended to tell.

"You.." He paused, weighing his words carefully. "You didn't mean it as a pity-kiss, then?"

"I didn't plan to do it," Louise replied, the words gushing out of her like water from a broken main. "I saw you buying those stupid love weeds from Zeke, and you'd asked me about lunch, and... and so I thought you like-liked me and I didn't know what to do with that! I mean, we've just been buddies and that's been great and all but this love crap changes things and I don't like things that change! And then I decided I'd gross you out so we'd just go back to being friends but then you just... accepted it and went on, and I mean of COURSE you did, you're YOU. And... And then it wasn't me you liked but Chloe. And... I thought I should feel relieved! Nothing was going to change! But... But I was... sad."

Her frantic rush of words slowed to a trickle, and she made an odd cough of a sound, wiping at her eyes. "And I was going to just forget it and move on, you know? But Chloe.. Stupid Chloe didn't even care about your card or the love weeds. So when you told me you wanted to kiss her...! I tried to make it happen. I really did. I wasn't able to do it, though. And she still didn't even care. She was going to break your heart and she didn't even care."

Louise's voice grew soft again, and she fisted her green dress as she looked up to meet Rudy's gaze. "I hoped maybe you'd surprise me, just... laugh it off and go on, you know? But... You still cared. She's not even worth the shampoo she washes her hair with, but...! And you were so let down. You just... wanted a kiss on Valentine's Day. And I just... I didn't intend to do it, and when I did I realized that it was crazy and it was going to change things...!"

She dropped her gaze to the floor, staring at the space in between then. "Oh my god, I'm such a damn screw up. I'm sorry. I ruined everything, and I stole your first kiss, and... You probably hate me now," she hiccuped, scrubbing a wrist across her face. "I don't think I can stand you hating me. Especially now that..." she trailed off, red-faced. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. At last, Rudy paced over to the stairs and sat down heavily. When she looked up at him again, he was watching her in amazement.

"You always surprise me, Louise." He gave a soft laugh, and she blushed in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," she began again, but he shook his head. 

"No, don't be sorry. I mean, I wanted a real answer about what happened and wow... You blew all my expectations out of the water. I didn't know you were going through all that. I mean... geez... I'm sorry I put you in that position, I just... I never would have thought that someone like you would ever..." he paused, shaking his head and Louise frowned until he began to speak again. 

"I never, in my wildest dreams would have thought Louise Belcher- that you would think of me like... well, like anything but a friend. You're so.. You're so amazing, and dynamic, and I'm just boring ol' me." He shrugged with a shaky laugh, face coloring a little as his shoulders rose up around his ears. "There's not anything interesting about me. I mean, I'm pretty boring if we're honest. Chloe was the first girl who acted interested in me, so I guess that I thought that was good enough. And now you tell me that...that you...?" The color rose sharply in his face as he caught her gaze, and he looked away with a stutter of a laugh. "Ever since that day at the museum, I mean.. You're amazing, Louise. I would follow you anywhere, but.. I thought.. If I ever said anything about liking you, or even admiring you, you'd slug me and leave me for dead in a ditch somewhere." He began to chuckle then.

Louise blinked away the humiliated tears that had been welling in her eyes as Rudy's nervous laughter bubbled up around them. "What?"

"Louise, I would have been your friend forever, and been perfectly happy with just that," Rudy laughed. "But.. Now? Knowing that there's a chance that you might decide to like me back? I'm never going to be satisfied with just being friends again." He ran a hand over his short hair, a lop-sided, self-conscious grin pulling at his mouth. "I mean... I just can't. I know you hate when things change, but.. do you think maybe you could change them with me? Eventually?"

She stiffened, clarity pinching her heart in a vise grip. No matter what she said, things were going to be different now. No, that wasn't right. They'd been different ever since she'd seen him buying that handful of weeds from Zeke.

"I might... I might not be entirely opposed," she managed to squeak out, straightening her posture and fighting the blush that was dusting her cheeks. Rudy grinned.

"Awesome."

 

\----

Confrontation: Version B

\---

The Springtime clouds were puffy and white, rolling slowly across the flawless cornflower blue sky. Birds chirped to each other from high in the budding branches of the trees, and the sounds, smells and sights of renewed life rolled across the Jersey landscape like a tide.

Rudolph Steiblitz was flat on his back in the city park, staring up at the aloof puffs of cumulus that glided far above his reach as he willed his lungs to work.

He wasn't sick today, he wasn't even in the throes of an allergy attack. Instead, he was a victim of Louise Belcher's one-kid kamikaze-attack that had leveled him like a post-Godzilla Tokyo.

Breathe, he reminded himself as he watched her laugh at the stunned expression on his face. His ears were still ringing a bit, and he couldn't quite catch all of what she was saying, but she was apparently quite pleased with herself for surprising him and knocking the wind out of him when she'd darted up from nowhere and clotheslined him with something that wasn't quite a display of affection but also not really an attack.

She looked away for a moment, and he let himself stare. Was it inappropriate to appreciate the way her midnight-dark hair framed her face? Or the way the tips of her short pigtails curled up towards her ears- both the ones on her head and the ones ON her head? How about the vivacious glint of her eyes? The cunning wit? The damning perception? The volatile, potentially violent C-4 supernova just waiting for a chance to go off that was just... Louise?

He'd never thought about her in terms other than friend, not seriously. He'd considered her one of the guys, more or less.

Although, she was kinder, sometimes. Her voice softer, and her words more sincere; and in those moments he'd mentally shook himself with the revitalized discovery that Louise was a GIRL.

A girl who favored slapstick to stickers and wry wit to ribbons, but still a girl. A girl and it was easy to think of her not as a GIRL but just as Louise, because Louise was not just any girl.

She smelled like hints of burgers and fries instead of a vat of cake frosting. Her laughter was a hearty guffaw instead of a delicate giggle. She was loud, outspoken and vivacious in a way that thumbed its nose at the notion of traditional femininity even in a dress.

And in Valentine's Day, she'd kissed him.

She'd danced around the subject any time he even hinted at bringing it up, but she'd kissed him and the memory of it made him feel a little bit light-headed. 

It had taken him weeks to piece together his thoughts on the matter with nothing to go on but his own thoughts and Louise's overreactions.

Oh she could be dangerous for his health if she chose, but she was always the one who got the most upset if she thought he was in danger as well. She was a friend, a good friend, even. She was the most ridiculous person he'd ever met, and she seemed proud of her oddness.

Did he like her? Sure. Did he LIKE-like her? Oh.. That was a surprising thing to consider because the fact that she was Louise meant that he'd never allowed himself the notion of considering it.

And yet, as he stared up at the girl leaning over him with a brazen smirk, he had to admit that- yeah, maybe he did. His breath came back as she reached down and held out a hand to him.

"What are you still doing down there?" she chided, as though she hadn't put him there.

"Catching my breath," he replied with a cautious grin. "Just catching my breath."


	22. Deception at 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He HAS to be lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now return you to our regularly-unscheduled story with MY version of the first kiss scenario.

"Your mom is killing me, Rudy."

Louise Belcher punctuated the observation with a grunt of disgust as she threw the pack of first aid supplies in the trash can at the entrance to Wonder Wharf. 

So, first date off to a great start, then, Rudy thought with a mental groan. The shadow of his mom's obsessive concern had overshadowed him for his entire life thus far, why should he have expected that the news that he was going out for his very first date with his very first girlfriend would have been any different? When his mom found out that the girl in question was _Louise Belcher_ , the first aid kit would probably be upgraded to a military surplus field medic survival kit. Obvious to his annoyance, Louise continued to ramble. 

"I mean, she smooshes you with all this... This defy death today and come home crap, but she doesn't ever even show up for you at anything outside her house. At least, not that I've seen. It's like, she's killing you slowly with the responsibility of staying alive."

Rudy shrugged as he followed Louise's meandering trail into the park. "Well, I mean I see your point but it's a little complicated, I think. I mean obviously she wants me alive, but has no idea what to do with me beyond that. I don't really think she ever planned on being a mom and hasn't ever really come to terms with it or something."

Louise made a disgusted scoffing noise as she strode past the cotton candy booth, nonchalantly reaching out and plucking a giant wad of pink fluff off of the nearest cone as they walked by. "She's had thirteen years to figure this thing out, Rudy. Thirteen! At this rate, by the time she settles this in her head you're going to be graduating college with a major in Psychiatric Breakdown." 

Rudy said nothing in response, and she frowned. That had been a good one, she'd thought. "You get it? Because you'll be having a..." She paused, turning around to stare at the empty space where he'd been moments before. "Rudy?"

She spotted him a moment later, leaning heavily against the cotton candy booth with a pained expression. The booth operator, a dumbfounded lummox who clearly had never had someone behave as if their life force was preparing to sputter out nearly on top of them, had turned a remarkably pale shade. Before Louise could call out, Rudy's voice reached her with a whimpering cry of "oh no, m-my blood sugar!" before he caught himself in the middle of a dramatic stumble. Louise gaped, frozen to the spot as if she'd been glued there. Something was... off. Maybe it was his stance seeming just a little too solid from her perspective. Maybe it was his tone of voice being just a little too clear and intelligible.

Maybe it was the fact that she'd never heard him mention being hypoglycemic. Whatever the reason, she found herself only able to stand there clutching a huge wad of ill-gotten candy floss, staring as Rudy pierced the booth worker with a pleading gaze. 

"P-Please mister, I don't have much money. Can I get a... Maybe a half of one for a dollar?" Before the worker could object, Rudy pressed the single bill forwards, heedless of the $5 price sign. "I'm sorry but.. look, you gotta help me or I'm- I'm gonna pass out!"

The carnival worker, thoroughly unprepared and untrained for a medical emergency, grabbed a handful of pink fluff and shoved it into Rudy's hand. "Sure! Sure, here you go! You need me to call someone?!" The stand worker leaned over the boy, reaching to help him up as Rudy shoved a large bite of the sticky stuff in his mouth. After a moment he straightened, waving the man off with a look of frazzled gratitude. 

"No, that's okay. Thank you, though. You saved the day there! I'll um.. I'll just go sit down for a minute and I'll be fine. Thanks.."

The boy wearily paced off towards the picnic tables as Louise watched, only to dart away when the concession worker lost sight of him as a crowd of senior citizens passed between them. Rudy laughed at the sight of Louise's face as he jogged to catch up with his stunned girlfriend. 

"S-Sorry, I thought he was about to notice you ripped him off," the boy snickered.

Louise collected her dropped jaw and began to snicker. A moment later, the snicker had graduated into a full-on cackle of astonished delight at the display. 

"Holy shit, you fake stuff? How long?"

Rudy shrugged, reaching to steal a nibble of her stolen goods. 

"Mn, years. I mean, that's how I amused myself for a long time. All the elementary schools in town passed me around like a hot potato, so until Wagstaff I didn't really have any friends to hang out with. I figured out one day that adults are stupid about medical stuff. You can tell them just about anything and they'll believe it, so long as there's a grain of truth in it." He shrugged, licking sugar from his fingertips. "Or, you know, if it sounds like there could be." 

Louise was still laughing as she punched him roughly in the shoulder, almost sending him to the worn, splintery wooden ground below. "Oh my god, tell me. Tell me of your evil ways!"

Rudy looked around, hesitant to say anything in the open for fear of being overheard. The duo skirted the edges of the wharf's attraction before they finally ducked into the boarded-up funhouse. Louise shook her head in wonder as Rudy began to list exaggerations that he'd indulged in over the years. The last of the cotton candy dwindled in her sticky left hand as she listened, dragging him along with her right. 

"I have bad asthma, but the two hours and I die thing? False. I'd have died in my sleep years ago if it were true, but no one ever considers that. Uh.. You already know about the chocolate and the birds. I carry an epipen, but I don't think I need it for anything, really. Mom bought it because she thought it would be handy. Just in case. Kind of a waste, in my opinion."

The boy thought for a moment, ignoring the way Louise was manhandling him through the attraction. "I'm not anemic, or hypoglycemic, or epileptic, or mmnmph?!"

Louise had stopped tugging him along, startling him first by knocking him back against a dingy, paint-chipped wall, and again as she shoved her mouth onto his. His brain fizzled with the realization that they were having their first kiss in the funhouse at Wonder Wharf, and this was only their first official date.

Was that a record or something? Wait, were they doing this wrong? Was HE doing this boyfriend thing wrong? Oh gosh, oh man.. W-Wait, what was..? Louise had her mouth open? What the HECK!? Was that her tongue?! 

With strength borne of startled desperation he pushed her away, gasping. "G-Geez, Louise!" He panted, hesitant to take his eyes off her as he yanked the inhaler free of his pocket and took a puff of the medicine.

Louise's eyes shone with dark delight as she pressed him back against the rough surface of the partition. 

"You evil, lying little weasel," she fairly purred. "You've been playing everyone in this town for saps this whole time?" Her glee soured then, teetering dangerously on the edge of fury. "Including ME?!"

Rudy grinned apologetically, which for some reason set the girl off again. She grabbed the collar of his shirt roughly in her hands and yanked, pulling his face down towards her own. For a panicked, nonsensical moment, Rudy wondered if it was possible to die by having someone glare daggers at you.

"If I wasn't so impressed," Louise growled, fighting the amused grin that was pulling at the corner of her mouth, "I'd be furious!"

Rudy squirmed a bit at the black fire in her gaze, stammering out a weak attempt at deflecting her tumultuous displeasure. 

"I r-really thought you'd started figuring it out a long time ago. I mean, it seemed like you were catching on after the wine train?"

Louise's glowering gaze sharpened, and she smirked dangerously. Rudy feverishly hoped that she didn't hear him gulp at the sight.

"You're a nefarious little sneaky bastard, Reg-Size. I gotta admit, I like it." She yanked his shirt collar again, pulling him downwards.

Her attempt at kissing him again was cut short as she recoiled with a pained grimace, nose wrinkling. "Ugh, oh my god. That asthma stuff...!"

"Yeah, it's really awful," Rudy agreed with a red-faced groan. "I wish I was faking the asthma. I guess.. Maybe that's why I fake other stuff."

Louise stuffed the last of her cotton candy in his mouth at that, and went in for another try at kissing him. "Much better," she decreed as stars danced in his vision.

"Oh my god, I hope I'm not getting diabetes from this," the hapless boy sputtered.


	23. Intercession at 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudy couldn't resist the urge to interfere when he had the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like reading Zeke's accent, because I thoroughly enjoyed writing it!

"I 'unno how ya done it, Rae-Roo," Zeke complained, leaning on his crossed arms on the booth table in the back corner of the Belcher restaurant. Bob's Burgers was becoming a more frequented, if not truly popular, destination with the locals, and the increased activity meant seating was at a premium. The two boys had elected to sit together rather than joining the elderly regulars at the bar or the booths of other teens and tourists that currently filled the space.

The younger boy looked up from memorizing his algebra notes in surprise at the bitter note in the high school student's voice and the odd nickname that Zeke had begun using lately.

"Huh? Do what?"

Zeke snatched up his nearly-drained soda from where it was sweating condensation on the tabletop and gulped the liquid, flinching at the watery stuff that lurked at the bottom of the glass. He returned the nearly empty vessel to the dining table with an energetic 'clunk'.

"I mean Louise! I 'unno how ya done it. Tha' girl's more dangerous than a demolitions man w' the shakes, an' here ya are, datin' her!"

Rudy gave a soft, breathy snort of laughter at the way Zeke described the situation. One would think that it was something horrific yet fantastical. It wasn't anything like that, really. It was just a thing. A glorious thing spun of gossamer-threaded vampire bat wings and gently whispered sweet nothings that came with blushing threats of bodily harm if they were repeated. He grinned and blushed a bit himself at the thought of the most recent one, and the fate of his chemistry textbook. That book was now "officially" missing and his mom would have to pay for that at the end of the year, but it was worth it to have a written record of some of the intriguing thoughts that tumbled around in Louise's head. He wasn't giving that treasure up. Belatedly, he noticed that Zeke was still looking at him with an expectant expression. With a small frown, he straightened. 

"I mean, it wasn't me, really. Louise and I.." His voice cracked on the word, forcing him to pause and clear his throat. "We kind of agreed to it mutually."

Zeke seemed to accept that, turning his attention to making water ring patterns with his glass. After completing a network of overlapping circles he pushed his undesirable drink away and rested his head on his left palm, glancing over at the dark-haired girl with glasses who was manning the front counter. Tina was absentmindedly refilling drinks while she studied her history textbook, oblivious to the attention.

"Dang," Zeke replied at last, "that don' help me a'tall. I's hopin' ya had some kinda inside line on the Belcher gals. Well, I don' guess it matters none anyway. I ain't gon' be here much longer anyhow."

Rudy frowned at that, ignoring the chatter on the other high school students in the booth behind him, who were blathering on about some fantasy television series about a vampire werewolf fighting a dragon over a girl or something equally inane. 

"What do you mean, you won't be here?"

Zeke straightened, clasping his hands behind his head for a moment as he favored the younger boy with a rueful grin.

"Aw, don' worry 'bout it none, Rae-Roo. I'ma failing too many'a m'classes, an' th' folks're gon' pull me out ta go back home ta th' family farm. Ain't no point ta wastin' them there teacher's time, tryin' ta teach th' unteach'ble."

Rudy gaped in disbelief at the older boy's casual attitude about the situation. "B-but! They can't DO that!" He protested, ignoring the brittle quaver his voice had.

Zeke scoffed coarsely at the response, slapping a hand on the wet dining surface in amusement. "Aw, don' be like tha', t'aint s'bad. 'Sides, I already been in school longer'n anybody in m' family. I'll be a legend jus' fer makin' it TO high school!"

Rudy's stunned disbelief melted into something almost angry. He had cultivated a small group of what he considered good friends over the years he'd spent at Wagstaff, and even being a few years his senior, he considered the other boy one of them. 

"Zeke, you can't be okay with that. Besides, I'm pretty sure that's literally illegal."

"Ain't no use gettin' worked up o'er it," the other boy retorted with a shrug, picking up his abandoned glass and returning his attention to making a new set of water rings over the first one. "We all gots our place in th' world. I been gettin' a mite too big fer m'britches fer a while now. I reckon tha' this's just the ol' status quotient swingin' me back ta' where I done belong."

Rudy stood abruptly, leaning over the booth to glare at his companion. "You give up too-" his voice cracked once more, forcing him to start over with his tone at a quieter hiss. 

"You give up too easy, you know that? We both know that you're capable of doing so much more. Heck, you were just helping me with my geometry a few minutes ago!" 

"Ain't hard to figure shapes!" Zeke protested hotly. "Tha's jes 'rithmatic, ain't no fancy-pants names and a billion dates that all soun' th' same to r'member!" 

"And what about Tina?" Rudy continued, on a roll and too far gone into his rant to pause it for anything less than an asthma attack. "You're giving up on her, too? You've stared after her for years, and at first I thought it was because you were trying to give Jimmy Jr. a chance. Well, I guess you just gave up, like you're giving up on school. Either you quit or someone else has to make the first move for you." Zeke looked away as Rudy continued.

"You don't ever risk pushing yourself, or putting yourself out there. Zeke. Come on, isn't Tina in your History class? Have you ever considered asking her to tutor you? Louise says Tina knows the material so well that she writes historically accurate, semi-plausible fanfic for it!"

Zeke blinked at that, returning his confused gaze to his companion. "Aw, T wouldn't wanna-"

Rudy turned, setting his sights on his former hall monitoring mentor. "We'll see about that," he grumbled, pulling a puff off his inhaler before turning and setting out towards the dining room's front counter.

Behind him, Zeke yelped in alarm, scrambling up from his seat, intent on tackling the smaller boy to the floor. "Ya CAIN'T tell on me, Rae-Roo!" Zeke cried, subduing the teenager with a modified sleeper hold. With a yelp of surprise, Rudy went down like an oxygen-deprived sack of potatoes.

"Hey, no wrestling during business hours. We have a rule about this, Zeke." Tina Belcher's distinctive, somewhat flat voice caused the older boy to freeze. Tina paced over, effortlessly pulling Zeke's uncombative form off of Rudy, who squeaked out a thank you. Zeke scratched the back of his neck as Tina's inscrutable expression and the stares of the rest of the afternoon's dining room patrons wore down his bravado. 

"I'm sorry, T-Bird, I just didn't want Rae-Roo ta tell ya.. Uh... Somethin'."

"He needs.. A tutor!" Rudy wheezed, earning a disbelieving stare from Zeke.

"Tha' was private! A man succeeds or fails on his own merit!" Zeke protested, pointing an accusatory finger at his victim, who was now fumbling unsuccessfully with his inhaler. "I don' need ya interferin', Rae-"

Tina tossed her hair, which shut the boy up as effectively as superglue on his face would have.

"Zeke, there's no shame in getting help when you need it," the girl lectured. "Did Thomas Jefferson refuse to seek help from-"

"I don' know!" Zeke interrupted, throwing his hands ceilingward in exasperation and embarrassment. "If'n I knew this history crap, I wouldn't be failin' it!"

Tina crossed her arms. "Meet me here after closing tonight, I'm going to save your grade, Zeke. I'm going to save it, or die trying. Well, maybe not that, but we'll do what we can."

She glanced down at the still-wheezing form of Rudy. "And also, I think you broke Rudy's inhaler." 

Louise's disembodied voice came from the back of the kitchen. "WHAT?! Only I get to endanger Roo's life needlessly!"


	24. Destination at 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We take you now several years into the future, where a delivery driver happens upon a weird little restaurant. And it's weird little owners.

Delivery work was not glamorous. Delivery work during a torrential, steadily-escalating downpour was even less so.

The delivery driver carefully secured the tarp he'd wrapped the stack of bread pallets on his two wheeler with, making sure the bungee cords were solidly taut. Hank nodded to himself in satisfaction and adjusted his cap as he prepared to make a break for the last drop on this street, the little greasy spoon hamburger place he'd parked next to. To his relief, even though the place was practically empty, it was open. 

It was a good thing he never wanted the glamorous life, Hank thought to himself as he started out into the rain. With barely a pause to slam the trailer door shut, he made a break for the door. He was surprised and gratified to see that the young man in khaki dungarees and a blue work shirt cleaning one of the booths had spotted him and was rushing to grab the door for him. The door was quickly shut again behind him, the courteous worker giving Hank a rather deliberate once-over as he approached. Unlike the last two places, the substitute delivery driver had been noticed here.

Maybe all the folks around these parts weren't complete jackasses, Hank thought as he moved the bread to the indicated spot at the far wall, near the cash register. He quickly unhooked the tarp and two wheeler from his delivery pallets and carefully wrapped the soggy bungees up. Once he'd secured them back to his two wheeler and slid it free of its burden, he turned to face the confused man behind him. The young fella looked a bit taken aback at his appearance, and it was no wonder. To put it mildly, he was soaked. From his dripping cap, which had not afforded much protection from the raging storm outside, to the puddle of road film-tinted water growing around his work boots, he was drenched through. No use complaining about it, though. He had a job to do.

"I've got a delivery for Lou Belcher, that's you, right?" Hank held out his manifest for the requisite signature, doing his best not to do a double take at the young man. The youngster couldn't have been much older than Hank's own son back home. For a moment, a wave of homesickness washed over the trucker. He straightened, sternly reminding himself that "as young as my son" did mean that the person he was staring at was at least in his early twenties. Where in the hell did the time go, he wondered.

"Who, me?" The man stifled a soft laugh, running a hand through his messy reddish hair as he took the forms. "Nah, Lou's in the back," he grinned, hooking a thumb towards the kitchen as he made a half-hearted effort at straightening some books and papers spread across the counter. "I can sign for that load, though. We weren't expecting a delivery until tomorrow but you won't get any complaints from me for the early service. Oh.. Um, wait though. Did something happen with Frank?"

Hank shrugged, pushing the two-wheeled dolly over beside the door to drip in the puddle already blown in by the fierce wind. Quarter-sized spatters of water pelted the window and door, driven nearly horizontal by the gale outside.

"Yep, 'fraid so. Poor fella up and broke his foot a coupla' days ago. Doc's not letting him drive, obviously. So I'm your substitute for the next couple of months. I guess you must be Bob, then? Nice place."

The younger man signed the offered damp clipboard with as much flourish as he thought the water-spotted paper could take, passing his barely-there signature back with a faint, self-conscious grin that easily knocked a few years off of him. "Oh, you noticed the new sign we put up! But no, Bob's taken the day off today. Too cold and wet for him. Gee, I hate to hear that about Frank. Hope he's doing better soon. Oh! Um, I'm Rudy, by the way."

"Hank." The two of them shook hands, Hank thinking in annoyance that the kid had a lousy grip. Kids these days. Didn't anyone teach them how to give a good, firm handshake? Rudy glanced at the clattering rain beating on the window and back at Hank's sodden appearance with a vaguely guilty look.

"Listen, Hank... Have you got a minute? Let us send you back out into that with a hot meal, at least. I can't believe you're rolling, let alone doing early deliveries today!"

Hank considered, mulling it over for a moment before settling onto a bar stool with a wince at the uncomfortable sensation of clingy wet clothing. "Well, people count on these deliveries. And I can't slow down for too long now, this stuff's supposed to just keep right on getting worse through the week. Dang storm season is something else, I tell ya what. So the way I figure, if I can get as many of them out as possible now, then that's fewer that'll be late after the main storm hits tonight."

Rudy nodded absently, the look on his face suggesting that he considered it was nearly suicide to be out driving in this storm. "Well, we're glad to send you out when you're warmed up again. Coffee?"

"Please," Hank nodded, not bothering to hide the gratitude plain on his still-dripping face. "Heh. The heater in the cab almost gets me back up to room temperature before I have to get out and unload. Oh, and uh... If I could get it for the road, that would be great."

"On it," Rudy replied, grabbing a thick Styrofoam cup and filling it before calling into the back for a special, to go.

Hank watched in amusement as a young woman about the age of the man running the counter appeared at the small service window, snapping demands to know what all this talking and no working was about. She would have looked fierce if not for the pink baseball cap with 'I got heartburn at' scribbled in marker above the logo for the Italian place across the street, which was perched atop her dark hair. Something bobbed behind her head, and it was only when she turned to squint skeptically towards the front window and the rain at the behest of her counter man that Hank could see that it was in fact a ridiculous long cloth hair tie peeking up from behind her skull. It was almost like a pair of rabbit's ears sticking up back there. Did it have wires in it? Was the fabric just that stiff? Why was he thinking about a damn hair tie so hard, anyway? 

Hank sipped his coffee and wondered to himself what it was about people in this little town. They all seemed to have some sort of tic of weirdness. He hoped it wasn't contagious.

The woman snapped out a "What?" Of disbelief when Rudy offered him the meal on the house, refusing to take any money from the soggy wallet that Hank had been struggling to retrieve from his waterlogged pants pocket. Damned wind, he might as well have foregone the raincoat for all the good it'd done him. 

Rudy assured him that it was fine, a smile of good humor spreading across his face as the short little spitfire in the kitchen began growling out statements about running a business and not a charity.

"Lou, I'm not charging this guy after he basically did us a favor," Rudy replied, tone patient as he pulled out his phone. A moment later and he grimaced at the resulting screen from his weather app, flashing the screen full of angry red radar imagery at Hank before returning the device to his pocket. 

"A favor we didn't ask for or agree to, Roo!" The woman retorted, pacing around to the front. Despite her fiery objections, she took care to gently place the bag of food on the counter in front of the stunned, soggy trucker. Delivery made, she returned to hissing accusations at her companion. "You'd give away the whole place if I didn't stop you! Every sad-faced puppy and every slob with a sob story..."

Hank watched, dumbfounded by the display as the woman turned and stalked back to the kitchen, still ranting about her counter man's generosity.

"Wait, SHE'S Lou?" Hank gaped, confused and a bit taken aback.

"Louise, but yeah, I answer to Lou. What's it to you, sponge?!" The woman, Lou or Louise, snapped as she appeared again for a moment at the service window before returning to grumbling about lost profits and presumptuous husbands. There was a clatter as she vanished, as if she was taking extra care to noisily straighten up the kitchen in a display of extreme displeasure- or was working hard at giving the impression that she was.

Rudy let out a soft cough of a laugh, rolling his eyes even as he grinned ruefully at the cacophony. "It's fine, Hank. Lou just doesn't like people to know she has a soft side. Gotta cover it up with bluster, or folks will say she's an easy mark, you know?" The intimate warmth that lit up his features as he glanced towards the dramatic grousing coming from the back was as clear an advertisement of his affection for the woman as Hank had ever seen.

"So she's Lou," Hank mused, taking a deep drink of the coffee and wincing. In his chilled state, the stuff felt like molten lava. "She's Lou, and so that makes you..?" Rudy blinked away the slightly love-dazzled look in his eyes.

"Oh! Sorry! I'm Lou's husband. Guess you're headed back out? Looks like the next big wave of this weather may hit sooner than predicted."

Hank nodded, gratefully accepting Rudolph's offer of a refill on the coffee before making the dash to his truck with his food and cart. Sure enough, the storm was picking up again, and he needed to drop off at least one - maybe two more loads before he could let himself give up for the day. He slipped a few steaming-hot fries out of the bag at a time as he drove for Sprouts and Stalks, a specialty grocer halfway across town.

He'd almost forgotten the burger in the bottom of the sack by the time he was done unloading at the grocery store's docking bay. The rain was coming down in heavy sheets that crashed over the truck like waves, the steady sound of it more a roar of water than a clattering of raindrops. Hank ran for his truck, signed invoice pad tucked under his jacket for protection, and leaped into the cab. He really wanted to do one more stop before calling it quits but he was forced to admit defeat by the time he'd made the agonizingly slow crawl out to the far end of the parking lot. The rain was too dense. There was no possible way he could drive in the stuff at anything but a slow creep, and if anyone else was as big a danged fool as he was to be out in it, he'd know as soon as they crashed into the side of him.

The last delivery on his mental "to do" list were officially lost causes until this torrent let up. Hank groaned, squinting through his fogging windscreen as he pulled over into the store lot, and hopefully out of the way of traffic. He was bunking here until the storm let up, looked like.

He set his brake and shut the truck down, listening as the faint sound of the radio underscored the steady thrum of the monsoon battering the vehicle roof. The white bag in the passenger seat caught his eye, and his stomach growled once more.

The few loose fries left scattered at the bottom of the sack were cold and greasy, and Hank grimaced at the feel of them. The butcher paper-wrapped burger still held a scant amount of warmth, however. Well, it wasn't like he was going to get anything else without a sprint across the parking lot. Hank frowned thoughtfully. Great, cold food from another cheap greasy spoon. What had the special been back at that place? He'd looked straight at the sign, and recalled thinking it sounded a bit off, but damned if he could recall what it was.

He pulled the sandwich free of the sack, unwrapping it for a hesitant bite. It wasn't bad, actually. He chewed slowly, considering. Whatever the special was today, it had included stuffed mushrooms and a sauce that he couldn't quite identify. Odd combination, but also oddly satisfying. It would be better hot, yes, but for a cold sandwich it was.. Pretty good. Heck, maybe even better than pretty good. He was a grilling man, himself, but he had to admit that for a fried burger- Well, the fare at Bob and Lou's Burgers was something he was going to be craving.

Damn. And his assignment in this town was only for two months.


	25. Anticipation at 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really it's the anticipation that's the best part of any event.

Prom was a disaster.

To be fair, it had been destined to be a disaster from the moment Millie was named head of the organization committee. The theme was "Best Friends Forever", a motto which had Louise grinding her teeth in exasperation. On top of the fiasco that was the planning committee's roster, there was the incredible ineptitude of the committee itself. Due to what was either a gross quirk of fate or the actions of a malicious god, the junior prom had been scheduled for the same night as the senior prom. This meant that the high school gym was now off-limits. Though the teachers and organizers flailed about with panic, no funds had been secured for such things as renting an auditorium or a hotel ballroom for the night. And that all snowballed together into a freak happenstance that had the junior prom taking place at the only venue in town that was willing to host the dance on short notice and for free: Wagstaff Elementary School. 

Louise's reaction to the news had been to attempt to plan a night out on the town with her date, which ultimately ended up with both of her parents insisting upon chaperoning. To make matters worse, several of the Elementary staff had also volunteered to monitor things. Philip Frond had appeared several times during the evening, fussing about the teenagers as if he thought he was somebody in a position of authority in the place, setting Louise to growling under her breath in annoyance. 

Really, it was amazing that the dance was so far into the territory of "memorably horrible". Besides the ridiculous venue and the insane escorts, the dance committee had managed to flub even the most basic of the set up for the event. The colors were silver and white, which somehow managed to make everything look washed out even in the dark gym, and the music was a series of Broadway musical overtures that gave no one anything to work with even if they were inclined to try and dance. 

The weather was nearly the only thing salvaging the evening.

Louise smirked to herself as she watched the show. Millie and a few other girls clustered around the single operating heater vent that fitfully spat dust-choked warm air into the Wagstaff gymnasium. The rain that had been a mere sprinkling of chilly mist that morning had turned into a torrential downpour not five minutes before the party began, leaving the teens no choice but to sprint through the falling water and nearly freezing temperatures to attend.

Louise herself hadn't minded much. Her father and mother were chaperones after all, and the earlier embarrassment of having them drive her and her date to the dance was quashed. No one thought to tease when her dad stepped out of the car, equipped with an umbrella for the occasion, and insisted upon escorting his wife, along with Louise and a grateful Rudy, to the door.

Consequently, Louise's empire-waisted knee-length black dress was nearly pristine instead of a clingy, sopping wet sack of water. Only the squeak of her still-damp sneakers on the gym floor betrayed that she and her date arrived in the rain.

Speaking of the other thing keeping the evening from being a total wash, Rudy leaned on the table next to her, nearly dozing in the comfortable silence they shared.

"Get a load of Mom," Louise whispered, giving in to her urge to touch him by elbowing him in the side. It didn't count against her as long as she wasn't being lovey-dovey, she assured herself as she drew his attention to her mother as she fought a valiant one-woman battle against wardrobe malfunctions.

"It looks like the rain does not agree with the current trend towards strapless and foofy," she observed with a fanged grin full of schadenfreude. "Mom's got nip slip duty and has turned it into a career."

Rudy let out a soft huff of amusement, glancing over at Linda Belcher as she loudly critiqued each shivering, miserable girl's soggy, drooping ensemble.

"Dinner and a show," he muttered, just loud enough for Louise to hear. She slapped his shoulder with a cackle.

He really was terrible, under that polished veneer of "earnest good kid" that he typically wore for adults to see. He was prone to bursts of evil subtle in a way that she sometimes didn't grasp fully until she was thinking about it in bed, hours after he'd made some comment just slightly off in its delivery. The full meaning of whatever the statement had been would hit her as she laid there contemplating whichever of his few tells she'd noticed. And when it hit, it hit without mercy, her eyes squinting shut as a diabolical grin split her face while she fought the urge to wake the whole house with her mirth.

He was just terrible, and she loved it.

Louise glanced over at him again as he turned his head to contemplate the refreshment table, where her father stood watch over the cluster of boys idling in bored conversation next to the punch.

Rudy's fingertips lightly tapped the surface of the table, his gaze unfocused and distracted. She could take the opportunity to appreciate how nice he looked in his suit and jacket, but the barely-there distraction of his tapping fingertips promised something even more enjoyable.

If Regular Regular-Sized Rudy was stolen imported chocolate, then Devious Regular-Sized Rudy was sea salt sprinkled extra-dark truffles with a hint of vinegar in the creamy mousse center, served in a stolen Ferrari.

"Do iiiiiiiiit!" Louise hissed under her breath, only marginally surprised when Rudy swiveled his eyes in her direction, eyebrows raised in silent query.

"Whatever you're thinking, do it," she whispered, almost squirming in her seat with anticipation.

Rudy inclined his head in her direction, giving her a politely offended scoff.

"I wouldn't do that to your dad!" he protested, which only made her mouth salivate all the more.

"I swear to god, Rudy," she complained, crossing her arms over her chest with a groan at the denial. "I love it and hate it when you get like this. Tell me. Tell me or find a victim." She glowered at him from under the evening's special headgear, a pink crystal-bedazzled bowler hat that her date had presented to her upon being picked up that evening. Annoyed with him, she plucked at the black ribbon that trailed from the large bow at the back of the hat as if loosening it would likewise ease Rudy out of his uptight refusal of whatever he'd just been thinking of.

Rudy's gaze was level now, just a faint glimmer of mischief sparked the green in his mint-chocolate eyes. Louise fidgeted anew with the ribbon, staring him down with purpose now.

"I would never!" He coughed softly to cover the grin that tried to break out over his face as she eyed him hungrily. "Want some punch? Looks like Mr. Frond is sending your dad to separate some of the guys who are getting too close to the drying off area." He paused, favoring her with a courteous smile that was not even the slightest bit diabolical. "Um... I mean, if you're thirsty, that is."

Louise chewed the inside of her lip as her boyfriend stood. Oh god, he was doing it. She didn't know what it was just yet, but her distraction was so thorough that three headed aliens could have landed in the middle of the gym chanting campfire songs and she would not have noticed or cared.

"Parched," she finally spat, watching as Rudy's 'polite public' face hinted at some smoldering evil plan brewing just behind his eyes. God, if she loved him any more, she'd be throwing herself on him then and there in front of everyone and kissed him until he needed medical intervention.

"I'll be just over there," he replied, nodding towards the table where Frond was keeping close on the punch bowl. She nodded with what she hoped wasn't a completely predatory leer.

Rudy stood patiently next to Mr. Frond as he fussed over bring the one to pour drinks for the annoyed boys clustered around the table with barely-concealed bottles of smuggled alcohol and things they thought were alcohol.

There. Rudy reached across Mr. Frond's own drink to grab a cup of his own. His wrist gave a slight shake as he did so, and Louise observed something small tumble out to splash a small amount of punch on the white tablecloth.

Rudy held out his own cup as a distracted Frond poured some punch into the offered vessel. Instead of heading back immediately, Rudy lingered to speak to a boy Louise didn't recognize in the dim lighting. Louise squinted, leaning forward in anticipation as Frond picked up his drink and raised it to his mouth. Millie and two other girls strode up just as the guidance counselor took a deep drink.

Seconds later, Frond's high-pitched yelp of distress echoed across the gymnasium and he flung his cup aside, drenching the kids standing in line. Rudy suddenly gave a shriek of his own, tossing his own cup in the direction of the recently-dried Millie.

"FROGS!" The cry went out, as the group of boys scattered, throwing their drinks aside in disgust. Louise, previously leaning so far forward that she was nearly folded in half across the table, sat bolt upright with a barely-suppressed howl of laughter. The refreshment table had turned into a free for all of flung drinks and fast-pitched food.

Rudy stumbled out to the side, gasping loudly for breath as the mayhem erupted like an active volcano behind him. Bob darted over and pulled the boy back to Louise's table and her frantically-waved backup inhaler before hurrying to stop the chaos wrought by the pair of amphibians now hopping around the refreshment table.

"So Roo," Louise nearly purred as her boyfriend wheezed into his inhaler, "were those frogs up your sleeves or...?"

Rudy ducked his head to stifle a laugh at her tone. "Just a couple of little ones," he objected as his ears reddened with pleased embarrassment at her tone. "They're all over the back walls. Someone must have left the gym doors open all day and they came in."

Louise glanced behind her, catching sight of a small grey tree frog clinging to the cinderblock wall.

"What are you, some kind of frog-smuggling ninja?"

Rudy just grinned in response as chaos stampeded through the gym around them, unchecked.


	26. Imagination at 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Yap could make a fortune charging extra for these services. Rudy really is just about as dramatic as Louise is.
> 
> Dedicated to my first-ever cavity and my first-ever filling, which happened earlier this year. And yes, I was thinking about Louise's cavity the whole time.

Louise glanced over at her boyfriend as the Belcher family station wagon idled at a red light. Rudy had a smile on his face, a relaxed tilt to his shoulders, and was humming softly under his breath.

"Okay Roo," she sighed impatiently. "You're far, FAR too chipper for someone who's going to the dentist."

Rudy laughed out loud at that, favoring her with one of the cheesy smiles that still made her stomach and heart turn little twisty somersaults. "Don't be silly, Louise. Going to the dentist is pretty nice. I think it's relaxing. Like a spa day for your teeth and gums." He grinned, content with the world and not at all putting her on. 

"I am dating a freak of nature," Louise sighed heavily, turning her attention to the world's longest, most stubborn traffic light. After a moment of staring death rays into the staring red eye, she shot him another incredulous glare. "I mean seriously. Roo. Relaxing? A spa day? Are you sure you're not confusing spa day with torture chamber? Because that's the only way what you said makes sense."

Rudy gave an odd, almost-snort of laughter at her commentary and shook his head at her adamant opinion. For a moment he was silent, and she tracked the movement of his left arm in her peripheral vision as he raised his hand and ran it through the increasingly shaggy hair atop his head. The tips, she was very well aware, now hid the tops of his ears. The notion that he'd taken her suggestion to grow it out seriously still made the color rise in her cheeks. 

"Anyway," she began again with a soft cough, "Yeah, torture chamber. Dentist. That's how it is."

"I like the dentist," Rudy insisted quietly. "You get your teeth polished so they're all nice and smooth, the bits of popcorn kernel and stuff you can't get our with a toothpick or floss because you can't see it gets cleaned out, and then they rinse your mouth out with that-"

"AGH! That water thing! God, I hate that thing!" Louise interrupted, slamming a fist down on the car steering wheel, earning a startled beep out of the machine. "Freezing cold needles, just STAB STAB STAB into your gums! Your gums which are, you know, probably bleeding all over the place at this point!"

Rudy leaned forward against the tug of his seat belt, peering at her in obvious concern. "Louise, I think maybe you need to floss more." Somewhere behind them, a car honked. 

"Green light!" she cried, belatedly realizing that the signal had changed. The force of the vehicle lurching into motion sending the boy back into his seat in time with her authoritative stomp on the accelerator. 

"WAGH!" Rudy yelped as he was flung backwards. He grabbed the seatbelt like a lifeline as she passed a slow-moving minivan. "Geez Louise, take it easy!"

"Psh, whatever, Mr. Perfect." the girl complained, mentally flailing for her driving zen. With a deep breath, she straightened her grip on the wheel and set her attention back on steering the vehicle towards Dr. Yap's office. So she hadn't been driving solo too long; so what! Rudy didn't even have his learner's permit yet, thanks to his mother's over-protective meddling. He had no idea how much work she put into making this driving thing look easy! Thoroughly put out by his inconsiderate disdain, she sneered at her passenger. 

"Whiners take the bus, Roo. Anyway, we'll see about this dentist thing. I mean, next you'll tell me you've never had a cavity."

A deafening silence stretched between the two for an entire block and a half of driving. At last, Louise groaned. "Seriously? Oh my god, Roo. You're like.. some kind of mutant or something."

"I just have good hygiene," Rudy objected, flummoxed by her apparent disgust. "It's no big deal!"

\--------------------

"It's no big deal," Louise repeated to herself as she waited for Rudy in the reception area of Dr. Yap's office. She was glowering at the television, which was permanently set on some channel that showed gossip programs about celebrities. It seemed to be a favorite of the receptionist, as she was the only person in the office paying the set any real attention. Louise straightened in her seat, swinging her legs and scuffing her shoe soles on the carpet. It was amazing how boring the dentist's office was when there was no looming albatross hanging over one's head in the form of waiting for your own appointment to start.

Where did Rudy get off, anyway, acting like the dentist's office was a fun, relaxing way to unwind? She knew the boy was unique, but.. well, this was pushing it. A lot. It was a solid additional question mark beside her mental assessment of him that read "Insane?" Psh, he was probably back there right now, half asleep in perfect bliss instead of preparing to scream at the idea of-

As if on cue, Rudy's voice echoed from the back examination room, screaming in apparent terror. 

Louise didn't think, she sprung into motion the moment she recognized the voice. A few seconds later, she'd kicked in the door to the examination room, a complimentary tooth brush held in front of her like a bayonet. "Rudy! I'm coming for you!" she shouted, stabbing threateningly at the startled dentist with the business end of the plastic blister package. "What did you do to my Roo, Yap?"

The dentist raised his hands in surrender. "I just.."

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Louise screeched, darting to the examination chair where Rudy was huddled, hands over his face. "Roo? ROO! Talk to me, Rudy!"

Rudy shuddered, raising his face to level a thousand-yard teary-eyed stare in her direction. "I- I- I have a..."

Louise's panic fell away as she caught sight of the screen her boyfriend was fretfully shooting horrified glances at, and she dropped the still-packaged toothbrush in disgust. "A cavity?" she guessed, annoyed.

"YES!" Rudy wailed, sniffling. "I've never had a cavity! I've always had perfect teeth!" He slumped in the exam chair, staring at the overhead light in misery. "Well, that's it. I've officially had the best years of my life and I'm now on the decline for real."

Dr. Yap gave the duo a reproachful grimace, and Louise waved him out of the exam room with a sigh. Once they were alone, she pushed the door shut with a soft kick and groaned, pulling a hand down her face in a gesture her father had long ago honed to a fine art form.

"Oh my god. Rudy. Seriously. I mean yeah, I get it- It's been hyped up and it's scary and all, but believe me it's not THAT big of a deal!"

She eyed the x-ray image that Rudy was now steadfastly ignoring as if he could make it go away. "Oh geez, is this it? That's like... a baby cavity. That's... Rudy I didn't know that they CAME that small! Aw, look how tiny it is. Kinda cute." When Rudy's only response was to shiver, she grinned. " Yeah... Shame we have to murder it, but we can't have it laying eggs in there and busting out your tooth like the monster in Alien, ya know?"

Rudy grimaced instead of being amused at her needling, clasping his arms around his shoulders. When he looked up at her at last, she let her evil smirk fall into something more sympathetic. Heartened, Rudy finally responded. 

"I'm... I'm just really freaked out by this. I mean, my teeth have always been the one aspect of my health that has been perfect, you know?"

Louise smiled, sitting down next to him on the chair and patting his shoulder. "Roo, think of it this way. A couple of minutes from now, they'll be perfect again."

Rudy let a small, uncomfortable smile tug at his lips. A faint embarrassed blush colored his face as he stared down at her hand. "This is going to sound so lame, but... Will you uh..?"

"Heck yeah, I'm staying in here!" Louise cried, punching him gently in the arm. "Someone's got to defend the head space marine surgeon in removing that parasite!"

Rudy blinked, lost. "Wait, what?"

\--------------------

"Patient is ready!" Louise barked, yanking open the door to re-admit Dr. Yap, who looked like he was all too familiar with the brand of make believe going on in his office. The dentist crossed quickly to his seat beside the exam chair, and pulled a mask over Rudy's face.

"Okay, take slow, deep breaths. Everything's going to be fine. We're going to knock that thing out with a little gas," Yap explained. "That'll make it safe for us to go in after it. You may feel a slight disorientation as a side effect, but that's perfectly normal. I'm going to arm the laser rifle and get my battle mask on." Yap started to stand, but looked back to Louise with a determined expression. "We'll save the colony AND your boyfriend, Madame President!"

"You're damn right you will!" Louise snapped, sparing them a furious glance from the position she'd taken up beside the window, hands clasped behind her back in a pose that implied the fates of a thousand souls rested upon her shoulders. "We're going to have to hurry, though. The coup d'etat led by the head of the space army will have us surrounded at any moment! We have to be parasite clear BEFORE they get here!"

"This is a really complicated backstory," Rudy marveled softly, wondering if the gas was making things make more or less sense than they should. He felt tired. Sleepy, even. He startled a bit as Louise rushed to his side.

"Don't say things like that!" she ordered him sternly, clasping his hand. "This is going to work, the colony will be safe and I'll have the people's full support to banish that maniac Frond out the airlock!"

"Mr. Frond is your head of the space army?" Rudy asked. "Wait, is that what you said? I'm feeling a little..." He yawned. "A little out of it."

"Madame President, it's time!" Dr. Yap announced, pulling his tool station alongside him as he took his seat next to Rudy's head and reclined the patient's chair. "You should get back into the safe room."

"I'm staying here!" Louise announced, giving Rudy a look of firm confidence. "If this doesn't work, there won't be anyplace safe on the station, anyway. If we're all going to die, then I choose to die here." She winked at him. 

"That... That's a really great line, Louise!" Rudy marveled with a bleary-eyed yawn, barely noticing as the dentist gently urged him into position and prodded him into opening his mouth to check his responsiveness. "That's really... really good. I'm gonna use that in something. I dunno what yet, but something."

There was a feeling of pressure as Dr. Yap worked, and some mild discomfort as the new filling was applied and filed down, but Rudy barely noticed anything beyond the warm sensation of Louise holding his hand and the sound of her voice as she narrated the baffling and downright convoluted tale of their character's lives on some distant, retro-futuristic space colony. The tale barely made any sense, but he listened faithfully, making soft noises of amusement or understanding as the story demanded. It was all pretty pleasant, in fact. Usually feeling this way went along with a devastating asthma attack, but instead he felt peaceful and calm, if a little disconnected. 

When Yap pulled back at last and announced that the procedure had been successful, Louise broke character to give him a victorious grin.

"I told you it wouldn't be that bad, Roo."

He blushed, ducking his head in embarrassment. She chuckled, ruffling his hair.

"Okay, you may still have some numbness for a while, that'll wear off. If you feel like you're still off after a few hours, give me a call, okay?" Yap lectured. "You can't be too careful. If you get to feeling like your teeth aren't meeting quite right, come back and I'll fix it up. Uh... maybe without the space opera?" 

Rudy and Louise both blushed and laughed self-consciously as she reached to help him up from the exam seat.

Yap suddenly brightened. "While you're here, Louise, maybe we should take a quick look at your teeth, too? You've got an exam coming up and-"

Louise yanked a startled Rudy to his feet and hustled him out of the exam room. "HULL BREACH! HULL BREACH! It's every man for himself!" she cried as she dragged her boyfriend out of the dentist's office and back towards the car.

"Louise," Rudy objected breathlessly. "I think we forgot to pay!"

"NO TIME! TO THE ESCAPE POD!" Louise screamed as she all but threw him in the passenger side seat of the vehicle.


	27. Intention at 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudy liked having a plan. Having a plan meant that you were prepared. 
> 
> Funny how even though he had a plan, he felt very unprepared.

It was Summer.

Technically it was two days past the Summer Solstice, and the warm wet air coming in from the sea was driving the humidity up all along Ocean Avenue. Less technically, it was hot as balls outside and the air was sticky. Walking outside to take out the trash earlier had the effect of making Bob feel like he'd rolled in a particularly-disgusting movie theater floor by the time he'd deposited the kitchen waste into the dumpster behind the restaurant. 

Ugh. Summer. Every day felt like the longest day of the year when the weather was like this. 

As he washed his hands in the kitchen sink, he debated the merits of just sticking his whole head under the faucet. Ugh, he could sort of taste the stench of the pungent dumpster drippings that had puddled around the waste receptacle. Still, he couldn't ask his help to take out the trash today. The air was like pea soup out there, and had been all week. Rudy's current 'Days Without Oxygen Denial' streak was at an all-time high in spite of the weather, and Bob insisted that the teenager take it easy.

The down side of this was that Bob was taking out his own trash. The up side was that Rudy had been fidgety-nervous all week long and that had manifested itself into a veritable cleaning tornado in the dining room. You could probably eat off of the ceiling fan by now, Bob mused. It had been the last item to catch the young man's attention, and after devoting most of the morning to annihilating every last speck of dust from it while atop a teetering ladder, Rudy had settled into the back booth (the murder booth, as Louise liked to call it). He'd been playing with his phone earlier, but the past hour-plus had been marked by the kid staring at the wall like a somewhat-lifelike mannequin.

Ugh, mannequins. They still gave Bob the shivers.

Bob was still lost in thought about mannequins (murderous and otherwise) when the alarm beside the prep station went off. Teddy would be in for the special of the day to go any minute now, and Bob hadn't even gotten started on it yet. He turned off the travel alarm clock, glancing out the service window to check on Rudy.

Good God, he was still staring at the wall. It was getting creepy as hell. Creepy and expectant. Bob didn't know what exactly was going to happen, but clearly something had lit the extraordinarily long fuse that Louise's boyfriend possessed, and now it was just a matter of waiting. Good grief, how long was today, anyway?

Damn suspense, anyhow, Bob thought to himself as he washed his hands again before grabbing a fresh patty from the fridge. He nearly fumbled it as Rudy poked his head into the kitchen, blinking in a particularly owlish way that Bob didn't think 100% Grade A beef really merited. For a moment they stared at each other.

"Uh... sorry?" Bob muttered, getting a sheepish smile and shrug in return. With a mental eyeroll, Bob settled the patty on the grill, adjusting the heat. Rudy pressed into the kitchen, the rest of him seeming reluctant to follow his head in there. They stood regarding each other cautiously for several minutes as the burger cooked. At last, Rudy spoke, breaking the awkward silence that Bob had been pointedly ignoring.

"Um, Mr. Belcher?"

Bob forced the reply of "Oh my god, finally. What?" down to a more friendly "Hey Rudy, what's going on?"

The boy was quiet, taking a few deep breaths and staring at his shoes for a moment as he tested the cook's patience.

"I thought.. I mean, I hope you... That is, I should tell you. I'm.. I'm gonna ask Louise to marry me."

Bob's typically smooth wrist motion faltered as he turned the patty on the grill. "Y-you are, huh? I.. Wow." Bob blinked. Of all the things that he'd anticipated being the cause of Rudy's hours-long staring contest with the restaurant wall, that hadn't been one he'd expected. Rudy cringed a bit, his head dropping slightly as his shoulders raised towards his ears. Realizing he might have sounded unhappy with the information, Bob hurried to paste together something a little more... not horrified.

"I mean, I'm not shocked or anything, but I am, kinda. It's just.. You guys just graduated, you know? I guess I just thought there was going to be more time before we had this conversation."

Rudy nodded, lifting his gaze from his shoes with the utmost caution.

Bob pulled the cheese-covered patty from the grill, setting it aside on the bed of sprouts that was today's attempt at a healthier lunch for the town handyman. The familiar motions were comforting and gave his brain a little bit of a kick-start to think about the implications of what was being discussed.

"You.. Want my permission or something?" He guessed, forcing a harsh bark of amusement from the boy.

"Mr. Belcher. No offense, but I think we all know Louise doesn't need anyone's permission to do anything. She'd kick my butt if I even thought about asking anybody's permission to propose to her."

Bob nodded as he topped Teddy's sandwich with sweet mustard, a layer of tomatoes, and a sprinkle of rosemary. The top bun was settled in place, and the entire affair wrapped in butcher paper and sacked up before he replied.

"Okay, you don't want my blessing. So-"

"I didn't say that," the boy cut him off, one hand gripping the chipped paint of the kitchen door frame like a lifeline. "I mean.. I don't need your permission, but... But I would, I mean... Do... Do you think it would be okay?"

Rudy's gaze fell to the floor again as Bob turned to regard him. He was babbling now, and couldn't seem to make himself stop. "I just.. I know this is weird, but Mr. Belcher, you're the closest thing to an actual father figure that I have. I actually tried to talk to my dad about marriage once, and his only advice was to always get a pre-nup! And mom... she was no help either. So.. I mean.. I need someone to really talk to about this. I just... I'm not making a mistake, am I?"

Bob shut the grill down into standby, scraping it down as he considered the jumble of a question.

"I mean... I can't promise you how things will go, Rudy. You've seen for yourself that sometimes folks who marry real young don't stick together."

The boy crossed his arms defensively, a defiant scowl on his face despite the fact that Bob thought he put that delicately. "You mean my parents? They had to, or thought they did. But you and Mrs. B..."

Bob placed the bagged order in the young man's hands. "You're not wanting to marry Louise because you think you have to, are you?"

Rudy nearly fumbled the sack at the question, grabbing it as if it were his sole shield against the words. His face turned a startling shade of white even as his ears and neck flushed crimson.

"N-no! I mean, she's not-!"

Bob planted a hand across his face, wincing. "That's not... Entirely what I meant."

Rudy scrambled for his inhaler with one hand, coming up short at first. "I mean, I mean we have but-!"

"RUDY. Too much information, stop now please," Bob groaned, dragging his fingers down from his scalp to his mustache. "What I meant was that if you're getting married because you think she expects it, or because anyone tells you that it's what you do, or because you're afraid she'll lose interest if you go to college off someplace, then that's not any better."

The jingle of the front door bell intruded on the lecture, and Rudy exited to handle the transaction for Teddy's lunch, in the manner that he had been doing since he'd started covering part of the afternoon shift. The chatty handyman was in a hurry, leaving with barely ten minutes of one-sided conversation with the boy behind the counter. Once the coast was clear, Bob eased out into the dining room. Rudy was leaning on the counter, head down and shoulders tense, staring into the polished Formica as if it held the answers he wanted.

"Rudy? Are you-?"

"It's not like that." Bob almost missed the reply, it was so soft. When the boy looked up, a fierce glare was in his eyes. "It's just... It's right. When we're together, it's like we're a team. A perfect team. And... I feel like I know who I am. I know it sounds dumb, and I know it's not like I'VE ever dated anyone else, but that's how I feel."

Bob leaned back against the restaurant wall, listening intently as the boy rambled. The brief reference to the few times Rudy and Louise had broken up passed without comment as the boy fretted.

"I know her favorite color, I know what medications she's allergic to, I know how she feels about kids, about what she wants to do with her life... I know her favorite cereal, her favorite band, and what actually scares her. And.. And she knows all that stuff about me. And... And... "

A wispy, abbreviated puff from the inhaler filled the pause as Rudy struggled to grasp the right words to get his meaning across.

"Mr. Belcher, I want this. I want it so bad I can't stand it. And the one thing I don't know about Louise is what she would think of the idea. I mean, I know that there's other stuff I don't know, but nothing else this important! And I can't ask her without.." A strained inhale punctuated the sentence midway. "Without ASKING her!"

The inhaler clicked uselessly in his hands this time. The boy straightened, white-knuckled hands clasped around the device. "I just.. I don't know what to do. If.. She says no, then that's it. I lose everything. I can't just hang around her as friends. Not anymore. And then I... I'll be... alone and..."

Bob interrupted now, as the boy's voice became strained with emotion. "Rudy, listen. You don't get to just walk out of this now. We're pretty fond of you, and.. And even if Louise shoots you down, we'll still want to see you."

"It'd be weird," Rudy protested, the last word dying away in a fretful squeak of air despite his determination to get it spoken.

"Weird kinda works for us," Bob replied with a shrug. His brow knit with concern at the distinct wheeze that he hadn't heard from the boy in ages. These days, supposedly it took a lot more to work the young man into an asthma attack than it had in his childhood. He noticed then, how Rudy's face had gone pale and sweaty. Oh crap. "Hey.. you're sounding a little rough, there.." Rudy clung to the counter, suddenly emitting a ragged gasp. Yeah, that wasn't good.

 

"Oh god.. And your inhaler's done for," Bob realized, pulling the boy around to the customer side of the counter and heading for the booths. Rudy was in the grips of a serious asthma spell and perhaps a monstrous panic attack, and damn it if there was anything he could do about it other than call 911.

Louise chose that moment to blaze into the restaurant, chattering to someone on her cellphone. As she drew closer to her father and boyfriend, she frowned. "Call you back, Jess. I've got a situation here." With that, the girl ended the call, shoving the phone in her pocket. "Roo, what am I going to do with you?" she sighed in resignation, reaching in her backpack and producing a backup inhaler, which Bob had not previously been aware of her possessing.

"HHnnnn--uhhhhhrr rheee?" Rudy wheezed, which did nothing but entertain the girl as she handed him the device. "Breathe first, Roo."

Rudy pushed the inhaler back at her, shaking his head and trying to mouth words at her. Louise's good humor soured faster than fresh milk on a hot summer day. "Yes, now. Goddamn it, I know you hate this damn thing, but you're going to use it. I'm not giving you any say in the matter! In case you forgot, you GAVE me authority over your life, Roo. And I say," She grabbed him in a headlock with one arm, and forced the inhaler into his mouth with the other. "You do NOT get to die today!" The reassuring sound of the nebulizer hissing came then, and Bob felt the tension melt off of him.

"Stupid moron, what was THAT about?" Louise lectured, crossing her arms as she glared at a contrite Rudy.

"I uh... I thought I might not get the nerve to ask otherwise," he replied, wincing under the force of her fury.

"Ask WHAT?"

"Marry me?" Rudy shrank in on himself slightly as Louise's mouth fell open. Before Bob could say anything, the girl was smacking the boy in the shoulder. "You idiot! Of COURSE I'm marrying you! What the hell? Did you think something ELSE was going to happen? God, you can be stupid sometimes!"

Bob coughed to cover a choked laugh. They were an interesting couple. Privately, he thought that he could see it working out between his volcanic little warrior princess and her soft-voiced sweetheart. "So, when's this happening? And uh... where?"

Louise straightened, a thoughtful frown on her face as she left off lightly mauling her new fiance. "I dunno.. I got other stuff I wanna do first. How's three years for you, Rudy?"

The boy, wincing at the bruise developing on his shoulder, made a non-committal sound. "I... guess?"

Gene and Tina walked in then, arguing with their mother about Gene's wardrobe decisions and why pants with vents should never have been invented in the first place, regardless of what rave culture thought of the matter. Louise winked at Rudy, who grinned back with a look of giddy adoration. Louise hopped up onto the booth seat and whistled loudly for everyone's attention.

 

"Okay, ow!" Gene complained. "I'll never dress like the darkest days of the 90s again! I get it!"

 

"HEY! Listen up, 'cuz I'm only saying this once. Roo and I are getting married!"

"Oh no you are NOT, missy!" Linda objected, pacing briskly towards her daughter with a glower, which Bob felt obligated to intercept. "They're thinking about doing this in a few years, Lin. Not this week."

Linda considered the notion, shrugging. "Oh. Well, yeah that could be different. Well, we'll see."

"You'll see me married in three years, or you will not like where I see you!" Louise challenged. "I'll see you IN the ICU! I know people!"

"Hey, neat!" Gene commented, immediately enthralled with the notion. He rushed over to hand out high fives of congratulations. "So Rude's going to be my brother? For real? AWESOME!"

Rudy grinned at the Gene-specific nickname, straightening in his seat even as Tina crossed her arms.

"I don't know. It's going to be weird. I always thought I'd be the first of us to be married. And plus, I think Jimmy Jr. has a boyfriend now. How am I supposed to build years of rapport with a totally new person in time for this? I won't have a date for my own sister's wedding!" The young woman began to groan emphatically at the notion, drawing Linda's attention.

"Come on, sweetie. You'll find a date, you'll see."

Bob gave a snort of laughter at the girls and their drama, but noticed that Rudy was watching their reactions closely. That in and of itself wasn't new. He had noticed in the years of having the boy involved in their activities and in their home that Rudy seemed to really enjoy just watching them all interact as a loud, boisterous family. Hm.. family.. Wait..

"So Rudy, when are you going to tell your parents about this?"

Rudy looked up at him with mild confusion. "Why would I?"

"Uh, because they're your parents?" Bob hedged. "Why wouldn't you?"

The boy stood up, hesitating for a moment before he explained himself. The way he was slow to make eye contact or begin speaking plainly advertised that the boy was about to be brutally honest about his home life and make them all uncomfortable.

"I don't think they'll.. care. I mean, I don't think it'll be a big deal for them really. They don't have a whole lot to do with me these days, anyway. I mean, mom's been making really straight-laced comments about how I need to be independent since Dad's court-mandated child support ended when I turned 18. Dad's just kinda... yeah." He frowned to himself before looking up at them all, eyes shining with emotion. "And well, if it's okay with all of you, when we get married.." he grabbed Louise's hand for support, which was granted with a curious stare. "If it's alright with all of you, when we get married I'd... That is, I'd like to take your last name instead of keeping mine."

"Whaaaaat?" Louise crowed, yanking the boy into her arms and grinning like she'd won the lottery. "You knew I wasn't giving up my name, didn't you?"

Rudy smiled back, blushing. "Yeah, and honestly I'm tired of Stieblitz. It's not a name that's ever done anything positive for me. So I'm not going to miss it."

"Won't your dad be mad that you're ditching his name?" Linda asked, an anxious note creeping into her voice at the notion.

"He's done a really good job of convincing me that Rudolph Stieblitz is an inconvenience at best and a liability at worst," Rudy replied, face serious. "So I guess I'm killing him. I mean me. I mean, I'm killing my old name."

Gene was enthusiastic about the idea, reaching to throw his arms around his sister and future brother in law. "Yeah! To heck with THAT guy, am I right Rude? And if they come asking for him, we'll just tell them we don't have one of those here, all we have is a Rude Belcher!"

"Oh... Oh my god," Bob groaned as Rudy startled and Gene and Louise started to laugh. Linda turned away to snicker as Tina took a moment to get the joke.

"Oh my god is right, that fits! It's perfect!" Louise cackled, leaning on Rudy's shoulder. "But I think I'll stick to calling you Roo. That okay with you?"

Rudy grinned as the girl reached up to ruffle his hair. "Yeah, I think I'd prefer that, actually."

"I don't care what you prefer!" Gene interjected seriously, "I'm calling you Rude Belcher until the day one of us dies! Get used to it!"

"Ooooh, because it sounds like you're saying he's obnoxious AND gassy," Tina realized. Louise reached over to pat her sister on the shoulder. "Got it in one, T."

Bob shook his head as Linda leaned on him, laughing. "Are you SURE you can handle all this, Rudy? Last chance to make a run for it."

Rudy flushed at the attention from his girlfriend's family and grinned. "Running's never been my strong suit," he said with a tearful grin as Louise kissed his cheek.


	28. Destruction at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was going to be perfect. 
> 
> ...And then Rudy screwed it up. 
> 
> Or... Just maybe he didn't?

The long months of saving and planning had finally come to fruition with the arrival of the postman.

Sure, he and Louise had been broken up until just a few months ago, but the gears of this event had already been in motion before their separation. (What was it again? Number two? Three?) This one had lasted the longest of any of their previous break-ups by far, and there were a few moments where he'd privately despaired that the relationship was lost for good and all he was going to be getting in the mail was a bitter, bitter reminder of what had been. Instead, they had reconciled and he'd breathed a mental sigh of relief that his plan to destroy Louise's mind with the greatest present she'd ever gotten was back on the original track.

Rudy closed the front door, the long-awaited box clasped in his hands at last. Louise's birthday was in a mere week, but Rudy wasn't sure he could wait until his girlfriend actually turned fifteen to give her this present, which he'd special-ordered all the way from Japan. He grinned at the unassuming cardboard box as he carried it into his mother's living room, ducking into his bedroom before she could notice his burden and ask what he was carrying. He didn't really want to explain himself if she insisted on seeing what was in this box. It was kind of weird, after all. Well, not *weird*-weird, but a small part of him wondered what his mom would think if she saw what he was secreting through the house like so much contraband.

He had bought Louise a doll. Not just any doll, either. 

Rudy's face was flushed with excitement as he sliced open the mailing box and unwrapped the paper secured around the collector's box, peering in at the occupant with a victorious chuckle. Louise was going to lose it when she opened this thing. He'd seen her watching auctions for the original run of dolls commemorating her favorite anime, Magical Girl Death Shooter, online for most of a year. When she'd found out that a new run of them was imminent, she'd begged her parents but to no avail. Her ever-growing despair of ever owning one of the ridiculously expensive collectables had given him the idea to act. It had taken some careful budgeting of his allowance and almost all of his savings, learning how to use a foreign deputy service and taking a day off of school so that he could be online to reserve one of the new Anniversary edition re-releases, but he had done it. The wait for the delivery (rescheduled TWICE) nearly three months later had been excruciating in more ways than one, but now his purchase was here.

Inside the large box, which was bedecked in images of skulls and holographic-print ribbons, the smirking likeness of Louise's favorite character, Gatling Firelace looked up at him, resplendent in ABS plastic and an incredibly detailed reproduction of her signature outfit. It was astonishing, he thought to himself, how much detail that the figure had. Something like twenty points of articulation for reproducing her signature poses from the show, eyes that could be made to swivel and wink... It was almost ridiculous. Even the character's purple and black swirled pigtails looked perfect. He carefully taped the protective paper back up around the box, and shuffled the object back and forth in his hands, considering. The Friday night when she'd sequestered the two of them in the Belcher family living room and loudly insisted he watch the just-released movie based on the show played in his mind's eye.

He had spent the evening slumped on the floor in front of the Belcher family sofa, leaning against the pillow that his girlfriend had thoughtfully tossed at his head at the beginning of the viewing party. The television blared bright lights and colors, but he'd only halfway paid attention to the images on the screen at first. Instead, he'd been quietly watching Louise out of the corner of his eye as she lounged on the floor next to him in a pile of her own pillows and blankets. Her attention was fully engaged in the world of the movie, where a team of girls with magically-enhanced guns and color-coordinated outfits were apparently fighting some kind of evil from beyond space-time.

He hadn't honestly cared much about the show until the third act. The story's battle had gone badly, and he recalled the mascot character, a small talking animal of indistinct species named Shinobu on the screen, giving the leader of the team a pep talk after most of her companions had been captured. Until this point, he'd been concentrating on his companion's reactions rather than the tale being told. However, the way Louise's glower of fury at the tide of the battle flickered and then brightened drew his attention back to the screen. The sour-faced, defeated scowl on Gatling Firelace's face had dissolved into a smirk and she'd stood, long black and purple swirled pigtails swinging out in an arc as she summoned her oversized weapon and turned her face towards the vista of the battlefield. A flutter of black lace and a spray of inky feathers danced on the periphery of the screen as the character stood to face the enemy again. It was the sort of shot that was cliche, a trope, even. Personally, Rudy didn't quite get what it was that Louise found so enthralling about the show, but at least the character designs were pretty cool. He had supposed he just wasn't the target audience as Louise nodded emphatically at the girl on the screen making a remark about taking out the trash.

On the screen, Gatling had called for the only remaining member of the group to join her. Zephyr Kalashnikov, a timid and frail girl whose main power had been supposed as healing, appeared on the screen. The frightened girl with the costume that reminded him of some sort of Russian folk dress shivered as she stood next to Gatling, her short aqua-green hair blowing in the dramatic wind. With a shout, the duo had charged into battle, Rudy whistling appreciatively as the battle turned. To his surprise, Zephyr produced far more damage than her feeble frame and hesitant attitude implied. At his noise of approval, his girlfriend had pounced.

"See, this is SO kickass," Louise had gloated as he had finally begun paying attention to the fight. "Zephyr is like, the second coolest character in the whole thing. She's stupid powerful, but she hardly ever has enough confidence to use it! In one of the sequel series, she basically kills off the big bad in one blow when she thinks the rest of her friends are dead!" The battle moved to the warp in space-time for the epic finale as Louise had grinned at him. "You know, if we were anime characters, you'd totally be Zephyr. That's, you know, the trope. The frail, sickly characters are the ones who have the power to end the world and shit."

Rudy had pulled his attention from the film at that, turning his head to give his girlfriend a skeptical glance. "I'm Zephyr Kalashnikov?" he'd repeated, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. She'd nodded emphatically, leaning on the sofa to grin brazenly at him.

"Yep, and you'd look damn cute in that miniskirt."

Rudy had snorted in disbelief instead of bothering to object. "Oh really? And who would that make you?"

"Gatling Firelace, baby! The only bitch who can light a fire under your ass!"

In his room, Rudy laughed softly at the memory as he stared at the knowing smirk on the doll's face. No. No, he couldn't possibly wait a whole week to give her this. He'd explode if he tried to keep it a secret from her.

He wrapped his jacket around the box and shoved it into his backpack, straining the fabric to fit around the bulky object. A quick and stealthy sneak out of the house later and he was cruising along the street on his bike, the wind whistling past his helmeted ears. The warm, giddy feeling in his stomach was making it hard to remember to move the pedals in sync and keep his eyes on the road as he turned towards the wharf.

Maybe that was why it happened.

He was only a few blocks away from the restaurant when the car horn and the screech of tires brought him back to reality. The next thing he knew, he was airborne, and then landing on his back on the sidewalk. For a moment, everything was quiet and nothing hurt, and he tried to figure out what had happened. There had been a car horn. A fall.

Oh.

He'd been hit by a car. That made sense.

Someone shouting brought the loud world back to his ears. A man with a nice suit and a bluetooth earpiece was leaning over him, asking him if he could move and if he knew his name and the day's date before shouting at someone.

"I got... I got hit by a car, didn't I?" Rudy groaned, reaching up with a shaky hand to touch his stinging face.

The man shook his head in the negative, looking up at someone Rudy couldn't see from his current vantage point. "No, you just sort of bounced off of one that pulled out in front of you. Good job not running him over, once he was down, by the way!" he added, voice raising to an accusatory near-shout. Another man's furiously shouting voice contested this from somewhere in the direction of Rudy's feet. The two men shouted at each other for a moment as Rudy flailed, finally finding his center of gravity long enough to roll himself to the side and sit up. Okay, he was okay. His clothes were dirty now, and his elbow was a little skinned up from where it had hit the pavement, but he was okay.

Something rattled pitifully from behind him as he stood up, and a sharp, stinging knife of dread sliced into his gut. The box. He'd landed on the box.

Dully, he reached for his bike, which was laying behind him on the pavement. Leaving the driver and the pedestrian who'd spoken to him behind, he walked away, pushing his bike down the sidewalk. He hesitated outside the restaurant, catching sight of his girlfriend talking to her brother at the front counter. Louise didn't expect anything. He didn't have to tell her or show her what had happened. If she didn't know, she wouldn't be disappointed.

Gene looked up and saw him, a friendly grin and wave springing to his face before they fell away with a confused stare. Louise turned, took one look at him and paled. She was out the door and pulling him inside before he'd even realized she'd gotten up.

"Roo! What the hell? Are you okay?" she demanded, brushing him off and gently pushing him onto the barstool she'd just left. "Did you get hit by the bus or something?"

"Bounced," he replied dully. "Off a car. Sorry Louise, I think... I think I broke it."

"You broke a CAR?!" Gene demanded, staring at Rudy as if he'd never seen him before.

"N-No... I broke... Um..." He couldn't say it, so he shrugged off the backpack with a wince, handing it off to Louise with downcast eyes. "I ruined it," he muttered as a worried Mrs. Belcher approached with a clean damp washcloth to wipe at his face and gently pry his helmet off to fuss over him in a motherly fashion. The whole sequence of events seemed to cascade over him all at once, and he let Gene pull him onto one of the bar stools as his asthma reached up to tie a knot in his throat. His inhaler was pressed into his hands, and with a shiver, he took a puff from the device. 

Satisfied that he wasn't about to collapse, Louise cautiously unzipped the bag, pulling the crushed package out and giving it an experimental shake. Rudy couldn't look, closing his eyes as the sound of ripping paper began. Louise's hissed intake of breath made him wince. She was going to hate him for this. Gene scurried for a vantage point as his sister tore open the gift.

"Roo... Where did you get this?" she asked in a tiny, hushed voice.

"Internet," he whimpered, flinching from her voice. "I'm sorry, I fell on it. It's probably ruined, and-"

Louise spun and leaned around her mother to flung her arms around him, crushing the breath out of him anew with a powerful embrace. The damaged box was still in her hand, and the corner was digging into his shoulder. When she released him, he dared open his eyes and take in the damage. The box was crushed, the plastic window torn free and the doll's formerly pristine face now sported a crack that spread from the corner of one eye, up the faceplate and all the way to her hairline. One previously-articulated arm now hung at an unreasonable angle. Her broken weapon rested in pieces at the bottom of the box, and her perfectly-styled hair was now looking rather squashed and flat.

"I love it," Louise breathed, staring down at the broken doll box as if it was incredibly precious. "I don't know how you did it, but Roo you're incredible." She sat the box aside to grab him in another fierce hug. "And holy shit, I'm so glad you're okay."

"I-It was perfect before," he managed to stutter, lamely. "It was perfect and everything was in one piece."

"New in box perfect? Psh, anyone can buy that," Louise retorted, kissing him on the cheek with a fierce blush. Mrs. Belcher gave an "aww!" of delight, patting Rudy on the shoulder before she stepped away. Louise gave Rudy a supernova of a smile. "I've got the one of a kind Gatling Firelace with authentic battle damage from saving my boyfriend's life!" She looked extremely pleased with herself for the idea, and Rudy blushed.

"Um, really I just kind of fell and landed on her..."

"And that's when she saved your life!" Louise repeated, authority dripping from every syllable. 

"Don't question the heroism, man!" Gene added before he began looking for his keyboard in the pile of shredded paper. 

Louise considered his brother's search for a moment, then gave Rudy a sidelong glance as he stared at her in awe. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me. More embarrassed than anything," he admitted with an abbreviated wheeze. 

Louise grinned, reaching for the top of the crushed box. "Then let's get her out here and fix her up! I have to thank her properly for rescuing you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... maybe we're not done here, after all.


	29. Germination at 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who knew what would grow out of a simple gesture?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably should be uploading the Thanksgiving one, but it's way too short and I still don't like it entirely yet. So here we are with Valentine's Day! (Spectacularly late or optimistically early: you decide!) This one is mildly out of "fic canon", because the idea of the "love weeds" from the show is just too adorable. Also there's a time skip during this one, which makes the 'age reference' in the title come off as a little weird.

A spindly stalk of a flowering weed marked Valentines Day the next year. Louise rolled her eyes and pretended to scoff, but before lunch was over a bundle of tiny blooms from the sprig of daisy fleabane was secured behind her left ear, mostly hidden by her hat. 

And so it went each year, long after Zeke's 'love weed' business had faded from the minds of their peers. Every Valentines Day, while roses were sold and the dedicated and obsessive worried over deciphering the meaning behind the colors and language of flowers, Louise would receive a single stalk of flowering garden pest.

And it was perfect. No pressure. No hype. No questions about why the offering varied in the number of blooms from year to year. Just a quick and silly "hey, remember that time I was hung up on Chloe Barbash? Wtf?" represented in plant form.

But eventually, Louise got to thinking about that. Did they mean something more? Should they? The two of them hadn't really discussed what the tradition meant after that first year. The thought that he might forget or even dismiss the idea of bringing the item began to fill her with a nervous dread.

After all, Rudy was so conscientious in his actions. He usually had a reason for doing things. If he quit acknowledging the time she'd kissed him, it would mean something.

Louise was a girl who liked things staying the same. If the traditional weed changed, it would mean things had changed. But every year, they would appear. A sad, reedy sort of plant, stem crushed from being crammed into a jacket or book bag, with tiny little white-petaled flowers.

Reassuring. Comforting.

Then things DID change, and it was no less scary on the first Valentines Day that they spent as an official couple.

Louise wondered as she trudged towards the school if this would be the year the weeds went away, replaced by something garish and overly perfumed. The expected thing was probably for 'real' flowers, either purchased from a fundraiser or bought at the supermarket. Perhaps picked from a window box garden at home, for that matter.

Louise sighed, lowering her head as she waited for the crosswalk light to change. The vacant lot adjacent to her was cluttered with garbage and overgrown with milkweed and potentilla, tiny blooms waving in the breeze as the first morning bees and insects buzzed around them.

"Whoa! Wagh! Crap!"

Rudy abruptly stumbled out from behind one of the heaps of abandoned tires in an avalanche of ancient vulcanized rubber and dirt, almost falling on his face as he pinwheeled his arms to keep his balance. He staggered upright, turned in her direction, and froze.

Their eyes met, and they stared at each other. Unconcerned, the traffic signal clicked over in the background.

"Rudy?"

Louise frowned at the sight of the boy, disheveled and dirty, clutching a large handful of blossomed weeds he held in each hand. "Holy crap, what the hell are you doing?"

Rudy bit his lower lip, color rising in his cheeks. "Um, well I was just.." The blush staining his dirty face deepened as he stammered. "I- uh... I-I wanted to do something bigger. It's uh.. it's Valentines Day, you know? Have to step it up this year." The hesitant tug of a sheepish grin pinched his face as he held up his handywork. 

Louise paced over to stare in bemusement at the bouquet. A wad of purple pennyroyal, still attached to the roots and dripping crumbling soil hung sorrowfully from her boyfriends right hand.

"Wow," she said at last, a warm energy pulling up from someplace down below her stomach to squeeze around her heart. "You really went all-out this year, huh?"

Rudy blushed harder, somehow. "W-well, it didn't seem right to get roses. I mean, I know you'd appreciate the thorns but-"

"Yeah," Louise nodded, holding out her hand for the mass of weeds. "Who needs those big, fake smelly things? They cut the thorns off of the ones at the store, anyway. It's like- like they're making the plant be something it's not."

Rudy combined the two handfuls that made his prize, hesitating only to pull the pitiful root-ball off the end of the pennyroyal before passing her the colorful bunch of tiny blooms. "Yeah, and I think there's something really nice about appreciating a plant that plays by its own rules."

She looked up at that, meeting his flush-faced gaze with her own. "Oh?"

Rudy nodded, giving her the full force of that half-grin that was so utterly dangerous. "Yeah. I mean, some people call them weeds, but um.. you'd also be correct to call them wildflowers."

Some sort of embarrassing girly giggle-noise tried to work its way from Louise's throat. She stifled it by burying her face in the colorful little blossoms.

"Sap," she sputtered, when she felt she could trust her voice again. "You goddamn sap."


	30. Dissection at 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you call it when you pick up other people's habits? Call it endearing, or call it maddening, it was happening to them both. Sometimes, it was even on purpose.

He watched her mom sometimes.

Was it weird, or even creepy, Rudy asked himself as he pulled his attention away from Mrs. Belcher. Glancing back to his girlfriend's face, he nodded along with whatever it was that she was saying. Was it strange that he looked for something like a snapshot of an older Louise in the boisterous, irrepressible personality of Mrs. Belcher?

He'd noticed it one day when Mrs. B. had come in from the rain, typically teased-up hair flattened and a rain bonnet tied around her head. The strong resemblance between Louise and her mother had caught him by surprise. He'd never looked for it before, but once seen it could not be unseen. When he had mentioned it to Louise, he had gotten a punch in the shoulder for his observation. It probably served him right, he'd thought to himself later. Louise was a daddy's girl (much as she pretended not to be), and any suggestion that she was more like her mother in some way was grounds for receiving her wrath.

Instead of voicing his discoveries, he'd taken to cataloging them in his head. Noting the little snippets that had been passed down through whatever combination of nature and nurture that created the one and only Louise. The glossy hair, seen so rarely out of some kind of restraint, was her mother's for certain. The shape of her face and the slope of her nose were, as well. Louise's laugh was her father's, but the way she carried herself (a kaiju going to prom) was Linda with a swing of something unique about the hips.

After analyzing everything he could find (not excluding even the way she curled her fingers just so around a mug of cocoa, or the manner in which she dumped marshmallows into the same mug to die a molten chocolate death), Rudy often wondered about his findings and how weird he might be for making them. Did Mr. Belcher do this, while courting his wife? Did his dad do this as the clock counted down the days from the early stages of his doomed relationship to Rudy's mother?

Or perhaps, were Rudy's observations something unique to just him? Was he alone in his dissection of his girlfriend's make-up?

Hm. Dissection? Well now it was back around to being creepy again.

Louise's finger suddenly thumped him in the forehead, and Rudy startled, blinking rapidly at the unexpected attack.

"Wake up, Roo! We're talking business, here!" Louise commanded. "Zone out like your dad at the laundromat on your own time!"

Something weird and maybe just the tiniest little bit creepy set down roots in his heart at that. His lungs fluttered a little as he inhaled. "Since when do you know what my dad looks like at the laundromat?"

Louise's mouth fell open, and she scrambled to collect herself. Her eyes darted down and to the left, settling on what must surely have been the world's most fascinating salt shaker before she replied unconvincingly that "I get around. I see things."

Indignant color bloomed in her cheeks as he burst out laughing. "You- You're doing it, aren't you? Are you following my dad around to analyze me?" He snorted in amusement as Louise crossed her arms and squinted at the salt shaker. If looks could kill, the poor, lamented thing would be buried in an unmarked grave at the very center of the globe. "You are!" He burst out, fighting the way he chortle wanted to turn into a cough. "You- You're doing it!"

Louise made a show of shrugging off his rough staccato of laughter, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms with finality. Classic, he thought to himself. This was the gesture of her father's that meant "I'm not admitting to anything and now I'm going to try really hard to pretend this is all your fault." Still sputtering out snickers, Rudy crossed his own arms and raised his chin in Mrs. Belcher's "I'm refusing to accept responsibility for anything and now I'm going to squint my death glare right between your eyes until you cave" counter-measure. The startled wide-eyed gasp that Louise gave in reply was worth the kick to his shin under the table. His victorious smirk was only slightly damaged by the wince he couldn't suppress.

"You kids having an argument? Aw, no you be nice to each other!" Mrs. Belcher herself broke into the proceedings, oscillating between a scolding tone and a cajoling one. Rudy glanced up, making a note of the way her hands were planted on her hips and the tilt of her head.

"You're not using THAT ONE on ME!" Louise screeched, abandoning her sulk to shove an angry finger in his face. Louise, through and through. He dropped his own borrowed gesture, leaning forward to put on a show of examining her nails before pretending to bite at her extended digit. When he raised his gaze with a grin Louise's own lips curled into a smirk in reply.

"You two settle! I'm going to get you a plate of fries to share, okay?" Completely missing the subtext of the exchange, Mrs. Belcher blustered off into the kitchen to argue with her husband. For some reason, the man insisted that the two teenagers were flirting instead of fighting.


	31. Complication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not one of his better thought out plans, but it did work and that was what really mattered.
> 
> That was what Louise would say later, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it’s been a while!

Rudy Stieblitz was enjoying himself on the walk to his girlfriends family’s restaurant. Today was Saturday, and he had no place better to be than hanging out with his girlfriend. The pollen count was low today, the sea air drifting up Ocean Avenue was only a little bit fishy, with a more prominent tang of cotton candy sweetness. The sun was partially hidden by the clouds, peering out bashfully at intervals rather than glaring down like an angry god of fire.

Rudy took another cautiously measured breath, letting his eyes slide closed for a moment as he gained the lime green edifice of Bob’s Burgers. The rich aroma of perfectly-cooked beef wafted around him like a friendly hug.

He paused as he felt the warm reflection of the sun from the shop window, eyes still closed as he sniffed the air again. He could detect a slightly sweet, herby sort of aroma dancing in the fragrance lingering just outside the restaurant.

What was the secret ingredient for today’s burger of the day, he wondered, brow furrowed in concentration.

The sound of the restaurant door being flung open was all the warning he got before a hand yanked him bodily out of his thoughts and into the dining room. His eyes flew open as he scrambled to keep up with the pace being set by his captor. Louise’s pigtails bounced with the urgent pace as she dragged him along like a child’s pull-toy.

“Great timing, Rudy. Step into my office for a minute!”

The tone left no room for argument, even if he had been inclined to give one. Obediently, he followed along as Louise tugged him through the dining room and towards the bathroom on the back wall, only to bounce off of her when she came to a sudden stop. 

“Oh, crap,” the girl muttered. 

Mr. Belcher had appeared in front of the duo, looking annoyed and frazzled. The man narrowed his eyes at the pair of them before settling his suspicious stare on Louise. 

“Louise, where is everyone? I can’t find Tina, Gene OR your mother.”

Louise casually dropped Rudy’s hand, waving the questions off like flies as she stomped over to invade her fathers personal space with a potent glare. 

“Psh, I don’t know. What am I, this family’s keeper?”

The bathroom door cracked open, then, and Rudy peered around his girlfriend and her father to see Mrs. Belcher peeking out of the door as if she was deathly afraid of someone knowing she was in there. Okay, this was weird, even for the Belchers. What was Mrs. B. hiding from? Before she could slip back inside, Mr. Belcher turned, and the two parents stared each other down. Mrs. Belcher slid out the door at last, giving a nervous chuckle before joining the group loitering by the front booths. 

“Lin, have you been hiding in the bathroom the whole time I’ve been calling you?”

Mr. Belcher sounded more confused than annoyed now, and Rudy let himself relax a bit. For a moment, the situation had brought back unhappy memories of the last year or so of his parents marriage. It was okay now, he supposed, helping himself to one of the red bar stools. It was just some confusion.

“What? Hiding? Maybe- naaaaaw!” Linda giggled, swatting at Mr. Belcher’s shoulder playfully as she swept past him to adjust the flying burger picture on the front wall. “I was just uh- occupied." She jumped a little, giggling to herself. "Ha! Occupied! You get it? That’s funny. I’m funny.”

Okay.. now Mrs. Belcher was nearly babbling and Louise was quietly sidestepping around her father. Rudy frowned. The girl gave him a significant glare, nodding towards the bathroom door before slipping inside. What in the world was going on? Had he fallen face-first into the Twilight Zone when he let his guard down outside?

Mr. Belcher was just as confused, following his wife with an exasperated groan. "Lin, you're acting weird." 

"Weird?" Mrs. Belcher echoed, deep in a staring contest with a dark grease spot on the wall. She prodded at the stain for a moment, making an unsatisfied noise as it refused to be scratched off with her fingernail. Without explanation, she pulled an ink pen from her apron pocket and began scribbling at the spot, her tongue protruding slightly as she focused. "What do you mean, weird?"

Her husband flung his arms outward, indicating everything about what she was doing with a baffled sputter. After a moment, he raised his hands to his face, massaging the bridge of his nose. 

"Oh my god, Lin. What is going on? First the kids vanish, and now you're defacing the restaurant walls. Something is going on, here." 

Linda straightened, grinning as she indicated her handiwork with a proud sweep of her arm. A crudely-drawn, impossible to ignore cartoony box of blue ink french fries now covered the grease stain. 

"See there, Bob? I fixed it! I made an art. I arted! Like an artist! This is better than when we pinned up drawings on the wall! We'll let people draw ON the walls! Ooo! Our whole place, FULL of cute customer drawings!" 

Bob shook his head decisively, striding over to the counter and peeling a sticky note from the pad next to the phone. He grabbed the pen from his wife and scribbled a quick note about a possible leak in the front window glass on the paper before sticking it over the drawing on the wall. He turned to face his wife with a look of genuine concern. 

"Lin, what's the matter with you? We can't draw on the walls! Mr. Fischoeder would have a fit! I mean, he'll never admit he sees this note, so maybe we'll squeak by long enough to find some paint or something to cover this, but... Where are you going now!?" 

Linda had abandoned her post by the window and was now pacing back and forth by the front door, nervously muttering to herself as if something was coming that she wasn't remotely ready to deal with. 

Rudy's attempt at slipping past the parents unnoticed was cut short as Mr. Belcher threw a 'Tell me what the hell is happening here' look at him. The teen shrugged, as far out of his element as Louise's father was. In lieu of easing towards the back a step at a time, Rudy seated himself on one of the barstools, resolving to move down one at every opportunity that he was given. As he solidified his plan, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to see the bathroom door quietly shut again. Mr. Belcher startled at the soft sound. 

This was getting stranger with every second. Maybe he should abandon stealth and just go and see what Louise wanted? Before he could move, Mrs. Belcher suddenly spoke up. 

"Bobby, I want another baby!" 

Mr. Belcher didn't even blink, Rudy would realize later in amazement. Instead, his immediate, monotone response of "No"was his only reply. 

"Oh come on, Bobby!" Mrs. Belcher wheedled, surprising Rudy by darting up to his bar stool and throwing her arms around him. "He's too adorable not to keep! Come onnnnnn!" 

Rudy froze in place, unable to move or even breathe as his girlfriend's mother hugged him, waxing on about how she missed having him around the house after the end of the recent week-long sleepover. 

"C-can't breathe!" he wheezed out as the woman's arms constricted around his shoulders. 

"Lin, you're smothering him", Mr. Belcher retorted. 

"Oh hush, it's not *smothering*, it's *mothering!* I gotta lot of love in me, Bob! Why I'll bet that-"

"Lin! Literally smothering!" Mr. Belcher interrupted, stepping over quickly to pull his wife off of Rudy. A puff of his inhaler later, and he was warily eyeing the woman as he enjoyed a lungful of air. 

"Uh, er... That is...," he stammered, hesitant to remain involved in whatever was happening between the Belcher parents any longer, "I'm going to go wash my face."

With that, he slid off of the seat and backed cautiously towards the bathroom door, eyeing the pair as if they were unpredictable wild animals. No sooner had the door clicked shut, shielding him from the dining room, than the lights clicked on by themselves, making him yelp in shock. Louise's hand was suddenly over his mouth as she shushed him. 

The sound of Mrs. Belcher announcing she was going to check on him was all the warning he got before the woman whisked into the small room alongside him, locking the door with an exasperated grumble. 

"That man is a Nosey Neville, that's what he is!" Mrs. Belcher sighed, turning to regard the group already present. Gene was sitting atop the toilet, thankfully not actually using it. Tina was leaning against the wall beside him as if she hung out in bathrooms with groups all the time. Louise was beside Rudy, shifting her weight back and forth like she was an animal caught in a cage. She finally pulled her hand free when Rudy turned to regard her with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Um,” he began, eyeing those already present with utter confusion. Gene, Tina and Mrs. Belcher spared him evaluating glances as Louise gave them all a triumphant smirk.

“This could work!" She whispered, loudly. "One distraction, as ordered.”

“I was thinking of a super-sized distraction,” Tina admitted softly, shoulders shrugged up around her ears. "Sorry, Rudy." 

“Yeah,” Gene agreed, haltingly. “Maybe a circus elephant, juggling flaming pins while riding a unicycle?”

“Well, we have a regular-sized distraction,” Louise spat, crossing her arms and glaring at her siblings imperiously. “So deal with it!"

"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?" Rudy lamented, only to be ignored as the Belchers frantically hiss-whispered to each other. 

The foursome stared him down coolly. At last it was Louise who spoke up, airing her refusal with a gruff, no-nonsense snort. 

“Don’t tell him why, he’s going to fold like an accordion if dad asks him point-blank.”

Rudy flailed for a moment, furious and confused. “Do I at least get a vote in this?”

“I voted for you already,” Louise retorted with a wink, turning him back towards the door. “Look, just get dad out of the restaurant and keep him out until one, okay? I got a lot riding on this, and that means YOU also have a lot riding on this. Got it? Good!”

With that, Rudy found himself hurled bodily back out into the dining room to face his girlfriends father.

“Oh no,” he muttered to himself, staring up at the baffled man.

Rudy stared up at the quietly furious form of Mr. Belcher, who glared down at him in silent judgement. Louise was right, he reflected. If he knew what was happening he would be spilling his guts right now. He cast his gaze about the restaurant, frantic for some sort of idea how to break the ice in this Antarctic-level freeze-out. CrudCrudCrudCrud... WAIT!

"I don't get it," he announced, frowning slightly at Mr. Belcher. 

"You mean what's happening in general, or this situation right now?" the cook asked, raising a bushy eyebrow. 

"The burger of the day," Rudy clarified, waving a hand at the chalkboard with a disappointed sulk. "The name just doesn't seem... this place enough. I mean, I know they can't all be gold medalists, but geez. And what's with the comics?"

On the blackboard, the phrase "Burger of the Day: Herb Gardener" was written. Beneath, the caption "Comes with roasted herbs and a napkin comic" was scrawled.

Mr. Belcher colored slightly, looking back and forth between Rudy and the board. "It's a pun, Rudy," he protested with a wave of his hand. "See, it's funny because Herb Gardner was a cartoonist and a playwright. Herb Gardner. Herb Gardener. You get it?" 

Rudy bit the inside of his lip to keep the pained expression firmly settled on his face. "I... I mean, I guess.." As he had hoped, Louise's father was miffed enough that he forgot about anything but plunging ahead with a detailed explanation of the day's hamburger, liberally peppered with commentary about the sorry state of the public education system. As he followed the man back into the kitchen, Rudy wondered if he should begin a mental countdown until the phrase "Back in my day" was uttered. 

"Okay," Mr. Belcher announced, waving a hand towards the grill. "This is where the magic happens. The... The cooking magic, not like... You know what I mean." 

Rudy nodded dutifully, noting that the smells that he'd caught only hints of outside were much stronger here. 

With a flourish, Mr. Belcher produced a jar of finely-chopped, dried seasonings. "This is the herb blend for the burger. See? Herb?" 

Rudy nodded again, and the presentation continued as Mr. Belcher lectured on how he had come up with this particular blend of spices and such and how each ingredient would combine to create a singular expression of botanic delight that would bring out the essence of the beef. It was all very interesting, but it wasn't getting them out of the restaurant. 

"So," Louise's father continued, lost in the lovingly-crafted explanation of how he'd perfectly-married each and every ingredient in the sandwich, "Then we bed each patty on a bun, and believe me you won't want to add any sauces or anything to this one. It's perfectly juicy on it's own, especially with the tomatoes and a blend of Radicchio and baby greens. Skip the cheese, even. Cheese will just suffocate the balance of it." 

Rudy's attention pinged to the alert suddenly and visibly, startling his host. 

"Uh... Rudy?" 

Rudy sputtered for a moment, frantically collecting his thoughts before speaking. At last he managed to stammer out a single word. 

"R-Radicchio?" 

Mr. Belcher was eyeing him as if he was in danger of imploding. "Yeeees?" he replied slowly. "It's a red variety of chicory, and-" 

"But what about the recall?!" Rudy all but shrieked, earning a genuine flinch from the cook. "D-Didn't you see the news about that on the tv this morning, Mr. Belcher? There's a big recall going on! If you're not sure your lettuce is safe, you can't serve that! Someone could get sick or something!" 

"Oh, crap. Oh, CRAP!" 

'Victory!' Rudy thought to himself as Mr. Belcher began to frantically dig through the kitchen trash in search of the discarded packaging from his produce.

"OH, CRAP!" 

The sensation of triumph only escalated as the man raced out the back door, only to discover the restaurant's dumpster contents were thoroughly shredded by the resident raccoons. 

"OH MY GOD!" Mr. Belcher bellowed as he raced back inside. "LIN! I HAVE TO GO TO THE STORE! PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE HERE!" 

Mrs. Belcher poked her head through the serving window to stare at them in gleeful confusion. "What? What's the matter, Bobby?" 

Her husband darted out of the kitchen, circling the counter for a moment with Rudy in cautious pursuit behind him. "Okay, okay, we still have time. We'll just uh... crap... I think there's some of the usual Romaine in the crisper but it's not the same- Okay! Linda, I have to go grab some lettuce super-super-quick. Can you keep a handle on things here while I go to take care of this?" 

As Linda agreed, the door chimed behind Rudy. The smirking face of Jimmy Pesto was interrupted mid-insult as Mr. Belcher raced for the door. 

"Gotta go, Jimmy. I'll ignore you later! Rudy, come on! You're my screener!" 

As he followed Mr. Belcher out the door, Rudy heard the other man ask what was going on in a dreadfully insulted tone. There was no time to apologize for the abrupt exit, however. Operation Keep Bob Busy was officially a go and Rudy was desperately calculating how long he could keep his girlfriend's father on a wild lettuce chase. At some point, Mr. Belcher would have to admit defeat and return to the restaurant, and the lunch rush was a mere hour away. 

"Okay," Mr. Belcher announced as he unlocked the red station wagon. "Hop in, Rudy. We'll just run down to the closest store and grab some Radicchio real quick. Simple." 

Rudy adjusted his seat belt, considering. "A-Actually, Mr. Belcher? Wouldn't it be better to go to a bigger store? Greens and Things over on Sycamore has a pretty good variety of brands. We want to make sure we get it in one go instead of having to stop several times because we can't find anything that's not on the recall list, right?" He attempted to look very convincing, but Mr. Belcher was firmly shaking his head no.

"We gotta make this quick. Let's just try the closest store first and hope they've got the recalled stuff pulled." 

Rudy hummed thoughtfully, drawing his smart phone out of his pocket and pretending to search for the brand and code range of the affected products in his made-up recall as the car pulled out into traffic. He hoped that he could be convincing at this. Keeping Mr. Belcher occupied for an hour would have been a chore, but two was ridiculous. He had just enough time to exchange some texts with Louise for ideas before the car slowed to a stop and shut off. To his consternation, the girl was supremely unhelpful and was responding in nothing but emojis. 

"We're here already?" he gulped with genuine dread, a tight knot of nerves twisting into the spot that used to be his stomach. 

"Yeah, let's move. We gotta be back before the lunch rush starts, and I don't want to fight traffic the whole way." Mr. Belcher was all-business as the got out of the car and set out for the small grocery store door at a brisk pace. Rudy scrambled to keep up, jogging a little as the older man vanished into the store. Mr. Belcher was frowning at the small selection of red chicory when Rudy arrived, and the boy breathed a mental sigh of relief that the store only carried one brand of the stuff. 

"It's no good," he exclaimed with a melodramatic little sigh, picking up a head from the little bed of ice it had been nestled in and turning it over. "Take a look, it's one of the recall brands." 

Mr. Belcher groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead. "Great, just great." 

A store employee in a green apron appeared beside them, grinning her best customer service grin as she chirped "Can I help you gentlemen find anything?" Her brassy blonde hair glowed strangely under the harsh fluorescent lights and her eyes looked strangely vacant. It was entirely possible that she wasn't altogether human, Rudy thought to himself. He'd heard about how retail work sucked the soul clean out of your body. Just in case the oddly mannequin-like woman turned into some sort of zombie-creature, he stuck close to Louise's dad. 

"Apparently not," Mr. Belcher grumbled. "It looks like you guys are only selling some of the Radicchio that was in the recall notice this morning, and I really need some that's NOT going to make people sick. Thanks." 

Rudy trotted after the man, blinking at the expression on the woman. She'd frozen in place as if by magic, a look of utter confusion and horror on her face. It was like she was a robot and she'd fallen into an inescapable feedback loop. 

The men regained the car and buckled in, Rudy again suggesting the store farther across town. Before Mr. Belcher could reply, a white van pulled in behind the station wagon. A smirking Jimmy Pesto rolled down the window and leaned out. 

"Hey Bob! I hear you can't make your special burger without some kind of endangered lettuce?" 

"It's not endangered, Jimmy! It was under a recall! I just have to go pick some up that's not on the list. Move your van, please?" 

Rudy found himself reminded of the grin of exponential evil mirth used by the Grinch as Jimmy Pesto processed that request. As Rudy and Bob watched, Jimmy rolled up his window and shifted his vehicle into gear. "You know, it's funny but I seem to be low on Radicchio, myself, Bob!" he called. The color faded from Mr. Belcher's face. 

"He wouldn't... YOU WOULDN'T! Jimmy, don't you dare!" 

Mr. Pesto laughed uproariously as he sped out of the parking lot, leaving them behind. Rudy marveled at the turn of events. This was going to be really inconvenient, and for once that was actually going to work out just fine. Mr. Belcher was swearing colorfully as he coaxed the station wagon into motion, giving chase to the gleaming white shape of the Pesto Pizzaria van. 

"Stupid Jimmy Pesto thinks he's so flipping smart. Little does HE know that I know a shortcut to the next store! Hang on, Rudy. This is going to be a little, uh, creative." 

Rudy gulped as Mr. Belcher turned into a parking lot, off into an alley, and zipped down an access road that deposited them into yet another parking lot through a positively dizzying series of twists and turns. The car lurched to a stop in front of Food Trapezoid and the teenager nearly fell on his face as he exited the car. The Pesto van was roaring into the lot moments later, and Bob simply grabbed the boy up and sprinted into the store. The blast of frigid wind from the air curtain over the door only elicited a weak shudder from Rudy as he was jostled along for the ride. Mr. Pesto was shouting something at them, grabbing a cart and lunging ahead of them to fall upon the lettuces on display like a carrion bird on roadkill. 

Mr. Belcher grabbed up a head of chicory that had fallen from the display in the rush, passing it to Rudy. "N-Nope. It's no good," he stammered, and the world twisted sideways as Mr. Belcher shouted unhappily about the stupid amounts of recalled produce that were still on sale. Abandoning his cart, Mr. Pesto raced for the door. He was stopped by a very unhappy store manager, who was complaining about all the disheveled and bruised merchandise. Mr. Belcher slunk past at a more sedate speed, hoping that he wouldn't have to explain why he was leaving with a teenager over his shoulders. 

"We gotta get to the next store," he muttered to Rudy. Behind them, the sound of Jimmy Pesto shouting that he shouldn't have to pay for produce that was being recalled echoed through the open store doors. 

To Rudy's relief, the trip to the next closest store was a much more cautious one. Mr. Belcher was arguing out loud with himself over the merits of making a run for Greens and Things instead of this increasingly-long exercise in futility. "Okay, it's about ten minutes til noon. Let's try one more place and if they don't have what we're looking for, we head for Greens. Sound good?" Rudy nodded weakly before taking a puff from his inhaler and reaching for his phone.

'Can we come back yet?' he pleaded with Louise. 'Ruse is getting out of hand.' Her reply was a string of increasingly angry emojis. Rudy pocketed his phone, heaving a long-suffering sigh. 

There was a large crowd at Alldee's Discount Foods, along with a news van. After spending several fruitless minutes circling the overstuffed parking lot, Bob pulled into the lot of the adjacent office supply store and parked. The duo pushed their way into the store only to discover that the produce section was the site of a news story being filmed. A woman reporter with a fluffed-up hairstyle and what was probably a very trendy dress was asking customers what they thought about something. Rudy rolled his eyes. Now the crowd made sense. Everyone was angling for their fifteen seconds of fame from being on tv. Well, good enough for them, he supposed as he followed Mr. Belcher's back through the edge of the crowd. 

The reporter suddenly appeared in front of Mr. Belcher, sticking her microphone in his face. Bob yelped, halting so abruptly that Rudy walked right into him. 

"And you, sir? What do you think about the expanding lettuce recall?" the lady asked. 

"Ex-Expanding?" 

At the mortified echo from the restaurateur, the bubbly reporter waved a hand towards the carts of chicory and other lettuces that were being loaded up from behind a ribbon of yellow caution tape. "Oh yes, we've gotten reports from several stores and customers that people are getting VERY sick because of contaminated greens! Stores all over town are purging their stock and refusing to sell so much as a head of iceberg until it's all sorted out!" 

Mr. Belcher was positively green as he watched the produce be flung into the carts marked as waste. "I think I'm going to be sick," he finally whimpered. 

"Best get rid of anything you're worried about!" the reporter replied. "You can't be too careful right now. Toss your salads before they make YOU toss your salad, if you know what I mean." 

Jimmy Pesto shoved his way past the two of them, nearly sending the duo into the highly-polished floor. Somehow the man had missed the fact that something was going on in his rush to catch up to Bob and Rudy, but upon finding himself in front of a microphone, he began to exude phoney charisma like one of his pizzas oozed grease. Assuring the reporter that as a professional restaurateur, he was the first person in town to know about the recall and he was rushing from store to store to spread the word, Jimmy soon had nearly everyone in the vicinity hanging on his every word. Rudy did his best not to gape openly. It was lies. It was ALL lies! Everything the man was saying was completely fabricated, and no one seemed the wiser. The reporter was now interviewing Mr. Pesto in earnest about the supposedly unhealthy food, and every question she asked made Rudy a little more anxious about his role in creating this monster. 

Mr. Belcher turned and staggered for the door, Rudy trailing behind in a blend of shock and terror as he reflected on what he'd done. He'd started a rumor about food safety that was now making the local news. How long until it got sorted out? Would it go national? Would it be traced back to him and Mr. Belcher? What happened to people who made up malicious rumors like this? Fines? Jail time? He was as ill at ease as his host by the time he reached the station wagon. 

"Well, I guess that's it, then. We're solidly into time for the lunch rush and we're not getting any lettuce, anywhere. The Herb Gardener burger is officially a bust. I didn't even get to use the little comic napkins the kids and I drew." The man pulled the car out into traffic at a far more sedate speed than it had moved at all day. "They were really clever, I thought. They had.. um, they had two guys and one goes "How come you decided to eat at Bob's?" and the other guy goes "Because I have great taste!" Mr. Belcher gave a hollow chuckle. "It was uh, a play on a comic Herb Gardner did about a guy being asked why he became a critic and... Nevermind. I suppose we might as well just head back," Mr. Belcher sighed, pulling a hand down his face. "Oh my god, this is the worst day." Rudy nodded quietly, lost in his own frantic, worrisome thoughts.

The drive back to the restaurant was almost silent. The only sounds were Mr. Belcher's exasperated groans and the occasional whimper of dread from Rudy. The store was completely silent when they came in the back door, without so much as a quiet murmur from the dining room. The kitchen was spotlessly clean, as if lunchtime had been cancelled entirely. Rudy wondered if the police had found out about the fake food recall and come to arrest the whole Belcher family for their role in it. 

"Um, Mr. Belcher, I-"

"Where IS everyone?" Mr. Belcher muttered, exasperated. He opened the door to the dining room to discover that the whole place was indeed locked up. A large sign was taped up over the door. With a grunt of effort to dislodge the ridiculous amount of tape holding it up, Mr. B. pulled the page off of the door; turning it to reveal the message "Closed for family issue" on the other side. 

"What the hell?" he muttered, tossing the sign aside and digging in his pocket for his phone. "Family issue?! Come on, Lin! Pick up!" 

Rudy's own phone buzzed insistently, a message to "STALL!" commanding him to take some kind of action. Well, it seemed his concerns about the Belchers' arrests were unfounded, at least. 

He wasn't feeling up to anything elaborate right now, and Mr. Belcher was already walking out the door and heading for the family's apartment. With a groan, Rudy realized that there was only going to be one thing to do. When in doubt, stage a medical emergency. 

Rudy quickly followed Mr. Belcher outside, standing next to him as he struggled with finding his keys. Giving a theatrical falsetto gasp, the boy rolled his eyes back and collapsed. His trust that he wouldn't face-plant into the sidewalk was rewarded as hands caught him and Mr. Belcher began frantically struggling to get Rudy's inhaler out of the mace holster it was secured in. The door rattled, and was flung open just then by Louise, who began to lecture her father on how all he'd had to do was keep Rudy from dying for just a couple of hours. 

"Really, dad? You let him conk out right on our doorstep? People are going to think we're as suspicious as that crackpot Pesto!" 

Rudy let his girlfriend pretend to administer his inhaler before she dragged him upstairs, her father shadowing the pair of them closely as he inquired about the rest of the family. 

"Everyone's in the living room watching tv," Louise said dismissively, pulling Rudy towards the kitchen for a moment. "Why?" 

Her father groaned, stalking towards the sound of the television in the living room with a shout of "Lin! Why is the restaurant closed?" No sooner had he stepped into the room then a shout of "SURPRISE!" rang out, scaring him into scrambling backwards through the door and into Louise and Rudy. After a moment, he peered into the room, blinking owlishly at the group assembled and the copious number of streamers and balloons hanging from the ceiling. A large, obviously homemade banner that read 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!' was taking up most of the far wall, leaking copious amounts of glitter onto the carpet and from there, onto everyone in attendance. Mort and his mother were seated on folding chairs, alongside Teddy and Bob's own father. Linda bounced forward, grabbing her husband by the arm and tugging him to a seat on the couch. A glass of wine and fruit was pressed into his hand as Gene and Tina presented a beautifully-decorated cake. 

"Mom made the cake," Mort put in, "she used to work at a bakery back in the day." 

"I still got it!" the little old lady proclaimed with a wink. 

"We brought your burgers, son," the elder Mr. Belcher called, waving a zesty-smelling Herb Gardener Special from his seat. "Not bad, for a gimmick burger." 

"Uh, okay." Louise's father muttered. "High praise from you, Dad. Thanks but uh... I don't know how safe that is to-"

"And I made this super sangria!" Mrs. Belcher announced, waving her merrily-sloshing glass. "I hope everyone has a DD, because I don't want anyone DOA after this party, okay?" 

"Can we have some?" Louise drawled from the doorway, "or are we just chaperoning you crazy kids tonight?" 

"The wine-free version is in the fridge!" came the retort from halfway inside Mrs. Belcher's glass. Louise rolled her eyes and headed to the kitchen, an amused grumble about having to do everything herself trailing behind her. 

"Turn up the tv now that the birthday Bob is here!" Gene shouted from his spot in the floor. Obediently, Tina reached for the remote. Rudy's legs folded beneath him as the breaking news story about the toxic lettuce hoax blared to loud life on the screen. Mr. Pesto was being grilled on how he'd established himself as the expert witness on a fictional food recall to several news outlets, only for the fact that the whole thing was a hoax to be revealed by someone who had the thought to call the FDA. A red-faced Jimmy Pesto was sputtering defiantly about the whole thing, trying to blame the whole ordeal on someone named Bob. All heads in the room turned to Mr. Belcher, who turned to stare at Rudy. 

"Uh... Rudy? About that recall?" 

"His lawyer is going to have to advise him not to comment at this time," Louise replied smoothly, breezing into the room with a glass of white grape juice and fruit for herself and her boyfriend. "So unless you got a warrant there, officer, I suggest you pay attention to your presents and not to my client." 

"Present patrol is here," Tina announced, pulling a toy wagon with colorfully-wrapped packages out of her parents' bedroom. "You have the right to remain gifted!" Gene added, punctuating the statement with a dog barking sound from his keyboard. 

"Open mine first!" Mrs. Belcher squealed, waving her glass. "It's probably a surprise, unless you found it in the back of the closet and peeked!" 

"I think I've had enough surprises for one day, but okay," Mr. Belcher replied cautiously with a soft smile at his guests. "But um... thank you, everyone. This is... this is really nice. Even if this is another outdoor grilling set from the back of my closet." 

"HEY, YOU PEEKED!" Mrs. Belcher protested as Rudy and Louise tapped their glasses of juice together.


End file.
